Thiruvananthapuram: CPM MLA and former minister M M Mani's allegedly insensitive remarks about RMP MLA K K Rema led to the Opposition UDF boycotting Assembly proceedings towards the fag end of the day on Thursday. Mani said it was Rema's fate that she became a widow. "We are not responsible for what happened to her," Mani said, while participating in a discussion on the Police and Jail Departments in the Assembly.
Opposition Leader V D Satheesan said the UDF would not let the Assembly function unless Mani apologised for his remarks. "We cannot carry on like this after one of our sisters is insulted in this manner," Satheesan said.
Speaker M B Rajesh allowed Mani to resume his speech, perhaps in the hope Mani would apologise or at least take back his words. Mani did not. "I have not insulted anyone, and I had no intention to," he said and rebuked Rema for criticising the Chief Minister. "It is not right for her to personally attack the Chief Minister," Mani said. Fact is, Rema had attacked the handling of the Home Department and not the Chief Minister directly.
It was former home minister Ramesh Chennithala's turn to speak next. "We will not allow the House to proceed after a martyr like T P Chandrasekharan is insulted in such a manner," Chennithala said. "I hoped the Chief Minister would tell Mani to apologise," he added. The UDF then trooped out of the House shouting slogans. Rema, who spoke just before Mani, was stinging in her criticism of the police force and said that her husband T P Chandrasekharan's murderers were given preferential treatment inside jails.
After the Opposition left, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also sounded unapologetic. "I heard a part of Mani's speech. What he said was that we were not responsible for her widowhood. He was referring to the CPM and the LDF. How can anyone find anything wrong in what he said? Then he called her 'mahathi' (respected lady). No one can say there is anything humiliating about calling her 'mahathi'," the Chief Minister said.
Nonetheless, the Chief Minister ignored the other, controversial, part of Mani's speech, which was that the death of her husband was her fate. He hinted he had not heard that part.
Before his comments on Rema, Mani had termed Congress MLA Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan the worst home minister Kerala had seen. Mani said that under Thiruvanchoor over two lakh people were tortured in the jails of Kerala. Thiruvanchoor questioned this but by then the younger UDF legislators had rushed to the well protesting Mani's remarks.