Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Kumar Vishwas has apologised for his comments on nurses while over 100 people staged a protest outside the party office in the national capital. He also earned the ire of the the National Commission for Women (NCW), which also asked for an apology.
Watch Video: AAP Leader Kumar Vishwas takes jibe on Kerala Nurses
Yesterday, Vishwas tendered an apology, saying it was never his intention to hurt the feelings of anyone.
In a statement sent to the AAP’s Kerala unit, he said he had never tried to intentionally hurt the sentiments of anyone.
“It has come to my knowledge that an old video-clip of one of my ‘kavi sammelans’ has hurt the feelings of many of my friends residing in Kerala. I must say that I don’t appreciate any discrimination based on religion, region, gender, caste or creed. I never tried to intentionally hurt the sentiments of anyone”, he said.
Meanwhile, over 100 people staged a protest outside the AAP office here.
The protesters alleged the remarks, first made in 2008 during a speech in Ranchi in Jharkhand and uploaded on a social networking site recently, were laced with “sexist undertones”.
Some nurses were among those protesting Vishwas’s remarks outside the AAP’s Hanuman Road office in central Delhi.
The United Nurses Association has issued a legal notice to Vishwas, asking him for a formal apology.
Earlier, two Youth Congress workers barged into the AAP party office in Kochi and broke phones, chairs and a glass cabin. They also threw black oil and rotten eggs, police said.
NCW chairperson Mamta Sharma also demanded an apology from Vishwas for his remarks.
“He should definitely apologise, and if he is saying that he had written this poem earlier, then too he should apologise. Even today a woman’s honour is same like it was around 3,000 years ago. The kind of comments that he has made against the Kerala nurses are wrong and the poem is wrong in totality,” she said.