Patna: A day after making obscene comments on the role of women's education in population control in the Bihar Assembly, which invited widespread condemnation, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday apologised and withdrew his statement.
“If I have said something and it is condemned by every section of society then I apologize for that statement and also withdraw it. I want to condemn myself for such a statement,” Kumar said while interacting with media persons in Patna on Wednesday.
Kumar on Tuesday, while explaining his population control theory of Bihar, said how the education of women has helped the state to control the population.
"After marriages, men ask their wives to establish sexual relations but as we have educated the women in Bihar, they ask their husbands to stop at the right time. Due to this, the population of Bihar is under check," Nitish Kumar said while some of the legislators sitting behind were laughing.
His explanation turned into an awkward situation for the female legislators during the proceedings. The words were too shocking, said several women legislators.
Following his statement, leaders of opposition parties -- Samrat Choudhary, Giriraj Singh, Vijay Kumar Sinha, Nivedita Singh and many others heavily criticized the CM.
BJP Bihar unit in its official tweet said: “No one would see a vulgar leader like Nitish Kumar in the political history of the country. The insects of adult B-grade movies enter the mind of Nitish Babu. The double-meaning dialogues of Nitish Kumar should be banned in public places. It looks like he is getting influenced by his alliance partners.”
“How could a person get vulgar and naked like this? He made the obscene statement in Vidhan Sabha and then in Vidhan Parishad. He exposed his own character by doing the post-mortem of men and women relations in Bihar Vidhan Sabha. In the name of women empowerment, he has given strong proof of his worst thinking. He is just a burden on Bihar now,” the BJP Bihar unit said in his official tweet.
After Nitish Kumar’s remark in the Bihar Assembly, the National Commission of Women (NCW) condemned it as well and asked for an immediate apology from him.
While issuing a statement uploaded on X, NCW chief Rekha Sharma said: “On behalf of every woman in this country, as the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, I demand an immediate and unequivocal apology from the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar. His crass remarks in the Vidhan Sabha are an affront to the dignity and respect that every woman deserves. Such derogatory and cheap language used during his speech is a dark stain on our society. If a leader can make such comments so openly in a democracy, one can only imagine the horror the state must be enduring under his leadership. We stand firm against such behaviour and call for accountability”.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) President Asaduddin Owaisi also reacted strongly against Nitish Kumar for his use of vulgar language in the state Assembly and asked him to withdraw his statement.
Owaisi told media persons on Wednesday that the language and gestures of Nitish were not at all appropriate. “He is the chief minister of a state and the kind of language he used there was vulgar,” he said.
Stating that the Assembly is a sacred place and the chief minister should have realised that he was speaking in the Legislature and not in a cinema theatre where an adult film was being screened.
With inputs from agencies