Ramanagara: Senior BJP leader and former Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister K S Eshwarappa today courted controversy when he asked a woman journalist what can the opposition members do if “someone drags and rapes” her.
Responding to a woman journalist’s question if opposition BJP has failed in its duty by not making government accountable for such crimes, Eshwarappa, Leader of Opposition in the state Legislative Council, said “You are a woman, you are here now, if someone drags you and rapes you, we opposition people will be somewhere else. What can we do?”
“You tell me what we need to do, we will do it;…we have criticised it in the Legislature, when a six-year-old girl was raped I used all sorts of language that I had to, you people objected to my language…,” he said.
Eshwarappa had earlier too found himself in the eye of a storm over his poser to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister K J George on whether they will have feelings for victims of sexual assault in the state only if their daughters are “raped”.
His remarks in November last year had come against the backdrop of incidents of sexual assaults. Congress had then slammed the remarks as “distasteful”, while an embarrassed BJP Karnataka unit distanced itself from the controversy.
The state has witnessed alleged incidents of gangrape in Bengaluru, Mandya and Tumakuru in the last couple of weeks.
A 20-year-old woman from Mysuru was allegedly gangraped by four men, including her friend, near Pandavapura taluk in Mandya on October 9.
This Beef Jhumla Party is only fit for cow politics. Human life and human values are less important than cattle.
What on earth was he thinking while making such an insensitive remark? Does a person need to be in power to handle tough situations, especially those that concern a heinous crime such as rape?? By uttering such statements, he is emboldening the rapists and corroborating their actions. In that case, just because a common man has no ‘power’, should he look the other way if a crime takes place around him??!!
It’s amazing how some of these journalists can criticize opposition party for the failure of ruling party and then play victim!!! Even though I am not a big fan of Iswarappa and his unsophisticated language, he is right in this case. The same media when he passionately protested on the same topic in the past. Now, they are criticizing him for not protesting enough!! Shows the sad situation of journalism and political discourse in our society!!
Also, this notion that every crime can be stopped is purely an infantile understanding of reality. There is no way a ruling govt (Congress or BJP) can stop every single crime. In fact, in some of these rape case, the culprits are either friends or family members of victim!! What Govt should do is go after these culprits and make sure that they get thrown behind bars. The fear of stringent punishment may deter some of the future criminals. Unfortunately, media just wants to sensationalize every story and encourage blame game between political parties.