KOLKATA: The National Commission for Women has submitted a letter to the Bihar assembly speaker, Awadh Bihari Choudhary, demanding the expungement of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s sexist comments on women, on Wednesday.
“The Commission strongly condemns and protests the use of such derogatory, vulgar statement made by persons holding responsible position which shows extreme disrespect to women. Therefore, in view of the above, l, urge for strong action against the Chief Minister—Shri —Nitish Kumar and his said statement must be expunged from the records,” the letter reads.
Earlier, referring to Kumar’s comment being akin to a dialogue out of a C-grade movie, the chairperson of the NCW, Rekha Sharma, said, “The kind of statement he made in the assembly was like a dialogue from a C-grade film. This statement he made in the assembly is a message to all the women and in front of men.” She added that both his actions and his words were extremely vulgar, “almost like a joke”. “The entire womenfolk is ashamed of him,” Sharma said.
FLASH: After facing criticism for his derogatory remarks on women CM, Nitish Kumar aplogised, saying, “If my words have hurt anyone, I apologise.”
He clarified that he was merely trying to highlight the low literacy rates among women in Bihar and their intention was to… pic.twitter.com/ApEs4ZidZZ
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Kumar had earlier said, on Tuesday, during a debate regarding the caste census inside the parliament regarding the need for women’s literacy in the state which would enable them to control the population. “If a woman is illiterate and married then their husbands return home to engage in intercourse with them, but if a woman becomes literate then they will not allow their husbands to have sex. Woh bolenge nikaal ke bahaar phenk do (Literate women will demand that the husband keeps their libido out of the room).”
Following the comments, Kumar had issued an apology in front of demonstrating Bharatiya Janata Party politicians who were not letting him enter the assembly’s grounds, on Wednesday. He said, “”If my words were wrong, then I apologise for that. If anyone got hurt by my words, I take them back.”
However, following the apology, Sharma highlighted that it was not enough and the Speaker had to expunge his statements from its records.
“The worst is that the Bihar Assembly Speaker has not expunged him. Only apologizing won’t be enough, The speaker must take a step against him,” NCW chief states.
The CM’s comments had been perceived with a lot of angst from all sections of the legislative assembly, which had also left a crew of male legislators in splits.