Karnataka Congress MLA K R Ramesh Kumar apologises after furore over ‘rape’ comment

On Friday, as several women MLAs raised the issue as soon as the Karnataka Assembly convened, Kumar said in a statement: “My intention was never to demean the prestige of this House or behave in an inferior way. I will not defend myself. I tender my sincere apology for my utterance during the proceedings of the House if it has hurt people from any part of the country.”

Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, who had laughed at Kumar’s remark on Thursday, also apologised to the members and asked them not to take the issue further.

On Thursday, when several MLAs demanded more time to discuss issues concerning farmers, the Speaker wondered aloud how he could run the session if time was allotted to everyone. Telling members to take a decision on their own, he looked at former Speaker Kumar and said, “I feel let’s enjoy the situation. I can’t keep this under control and take it forward in a systematic way.” It was in response to this comment that Kumar stood up and drew the comparison to rape.

On Friday, Kumar quoted Chinese philosopher Confucius and said: “To own a mistake, ends up in a single mistake. To deny a mistake amounts to multiple mistakes.” He also apologised to the Speaker for the statement that made him laugh and thereby draw criticism.

Earlier, Kumar’s party colleague and Khanapur MLA Anjali Nimbalkar tweeted: “The House shall apologise to the entire womanhood, every mother, sister & daughter of this nation for such an obnoxious & shameless behaviour.” Another Congress MLA Sowmya Reddy tweeted: “This is just NOT ok. There needs to be an apology.”

In Delhi, BJP leaders slammed Kumar’s remark. “We are seeing a very lewd statement of a Congress MLA from Karnataka on TV channels this morning. This is a very sad and shameful statement. Congress has a history that such remarks have been made by them about women continuously,” BJP’s national media head Anil Baluni said.

In a press conference, which was also attended by Union Ministers of State V Muraleedharan and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, former Union Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, and MP Aparajita Sarangi, the BJP leaders also listed past instances of Congressmen making objectionable remarks against women. “He (Ramesh Kumar) was a Constitutional authority. He has trivialised crimes against women,” Chandrasekhar said.

The issue also resonated in the Lok Sabha where Union Minister Smriti Irani, while replying to a supplementary question, said without naming Kumar or the Congress: “One of their representatives in Karnataka yesterday said and made remarks about women, which needs to be condemned by every public representative”.

Taking to Twitter, National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma posted: “It is extremely sad and unfortunate that we still have public representatives who are misogynists and have a horrible mindset towards women. It’s really disgusting. If they sit in assemblies and speak like this, how they must be behaving with women in their lives?”

Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar tweeted that the party “condemns the words spoken by one of our own legislators” in the assembly.

“The insensitive remarks against women are contrary to the values of gender equality the Congress party champions. While we note that the legislator has tendered an apology, the incident in the assembly is a sign that all of us men in politics need to do better to shed our inherent regressive attitudes towards women,” Shivakumar tweeted.

“As the president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, I am deeply saddened that such words were uttered by a Congress MLA. To all the women of Karnataka, I am sorry and I will ensure words like these are never repeated,” he wrote.