The election heat refuses to die in Kerala more than a fortnight after the Left-ruled state voted for its 20 Lok Sabha seats on April 26.
A vulgar and sexist remark by Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader K.S. Hariharan against former health minister and CPM candidate K.K. Shailaja has triggered a furore in Kerala’s Vadakara.
Shailaja, the Mattanur MLA, was engaged in one of the toughest electoral battles in Kerala after the Congress fielded young lawmaker Shafi Parambil. Matters came to a head when Hariharan made indecent remarks against Shailaja and actress Manju Warrier, a Malayalam superstar.
“Will anyone make a porn video of this teacher (Shailaja is also a former schoolteacher)? We can understand if it’s a porn video of Manju Warrier,” Hariharan had said in Vadakara on Saturday while addressing a public event organised by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), which the RMP is part of.
The audience lapped up the comment as they were heard cheering and applauding for Hariharan in the video clip now viral on social media. The RMP leader was alluding to a controversy in which UDF supporters allegedly directed misogynistic and vulgar remarks at Shailaja during election campaigns.
In a complaint to the Election Commission, Shailaja cited multiple instances of vulgar cyber attacks against her. In one such attack, her face was morphed onto a smut video and circulated on her family WhatsApp group in Vadakara. The jurisdictional New Mahe police station in Kannur district had taken suo moto cognisance of the incident and booked Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader T.H. Aslam for circulating the morphed video.
A day after Hariharan issued the sexist remark, a bomb was hurled at his house in Thenhipalam. The explosion didn’t cause any damage because the bomb hit the boundary wall. The police have registered a case against Hariharan’s sexist remarks and also the bomb attack on his house.
Based on a complaint lodged by V.K. Sanoj, the state secretary of the DYFI, the police booked Hariharan under IPC Sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) and 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman).
Hariharan has expressed regret for his remarks through a social media post hours after the speech. “Such slips sneak in while addressing public meetings since they are not written speeches. It was a wrong usage in a long speech. But I admit it was an unparliamentary remark. When friends from the media and my party brought it to my notice soon after the speech, I expressed regret through a Facebook message posted while returning in a bus,” Hariharan told a channel.
