Mulayam’s shocker: Women in House will invite catcalls

This neta seems to have forgotten the art of being politically correct. Weeks after inviting flak from all quarters for his vociferous opposition to the Women’s Reservation Bill, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has landed himself in a fresh controversy by making a derogatory remark about women.

“If the Women’s Reservation Bill is passed in its existing form, what kind of women will enter Parliament and the state legislatures? …It would be the wives and daughters of government officials and big business houses, who would invite whistles from young men,” the Samajwadi Party leader said in a speech on Tuesday. While he sought to qualify his comment saying, “I don’t want to say this”, the damage was done already.
Brickbats were quick to follow.

The first off the block was Amar Singh, Mulayam’s now-estranged confidant. Singh termed his former boss’s comment as “sexist, demeaning, unfortunate and reflective of a Taliban-like mindset”. He urged the national commission for women (NCW) to look into the issue and act strongly on it.

Expelled SP member and MP from Rampur, Jaya Prada, broke her vow not to attack ‘Netaji’ directly. “It is a remark of a male chauvinist. I am deeply hurt by it,’’ she said.

In a sharp reaction, newly appointed BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said the comment was especially objectionable considering “his (Mulayam’s) own daughter-in-law is now in politics”. NCW chairperson and Congress MP Girija Vyas, too, expressed “shock and pain” over the SP chief’s remark and said she “didn’t expect a leader of Mulayam Singhji’s stature to make such a comment.”

“It seems Mulayam is still living in the 17th or 18th century… if he is so worried about people whistling at women MPs, he should not have fielded his bahu Dimple in the Ferozabad by-election,” Congress leader Digvijay Singh said.

CPM politburo member and a strong proponent of the women’s bill, Brinda Karat said, “If he (Mulayam) has an opposition to the bill, there’s logic to that opposition which he can express. But precisely because there is no logic to that opposition, he is resorting to such a low level of political debate, which is offensive to women.’’

This comment about men whistling or cat-calling at women who are in politics also trivialises what is actually a harassment offence, she added.

Meanwhile, the former UP chief minister’s party has jumped to his defence. In a statement released on Wednesday, SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhry said a section of the media was biased against backward leaders such as Mulayam and Lalu Prasad.

 “This is a deliberate attempt to malign our leader… he never said anything insulting to women,” he asserted.