Thiruvananthapuram : Women leaders cutting across party lines in Kerala are up in arms against former Congress leader Cherian Philip for sticking to an alleged ”sexually loaded” comment he made against women leaders in the ruling Congress party.
Cherian, who quit Congress in 2001 after he was denied a ticket to contest the Assembly polls, created a furore by stating in his Facebook page that many Congress women had got party tickets by offering sexual favours. The allegation came as a comment on a ”shirtless” march taken out by Youth Congress activists at Thrissur in protest against the denial of seats to youngsters in the local body polls.
“The protest by the Youth Congress workers is a model one that can be emulated. Many Congress women who staged a similar protest in front of male leaders earlier were given tickets to contest polls,” said Philip, who is currently a Communist fellow traveler and a media critic.
Barring a couple of leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), leaders of almost all the parties, including opposition leader V S Achuthanandan, and women leaders of all the parties have described the comment as ”anti-women” and asked Cherian to withdraw it.
CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan are the only leaders who have backed Cherian. They said that the comments were not against women but against the culture in the Congress.
However, fellow politburo member Brinda Karat has described the comment as atrocious. “Everybody knows about the low morals in the Congress but to use it to insult women is totally unacceptable,” Brinda told reporters in New Delhi on Monday. She urged Cherian to withdraw the comment.
Cherian, who unsuccessfully contested the last Assembly election against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy at Puthupally in Kottayam district as a CPI(M)-supported independent, is in no mood to withdraw the comment. Stating his final position on Facebook, he said that his culture was to say the truth and none can tie his tongue.
