West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh attacked the participation of women in protests, saying that they were 'drugged' and committing 'indecent acts.'
The comments came on Sunday, 8 March, which happened to be International Women's Day, and were made at a press conference in Kolkata, where he was addressing the Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) controversy.
Ghosh added that such acts would lead to women becoming victims of violence, and that society must introspect about where such behaviour would lead us, the Indian Express reported.
Commenting on Ghosh's statement, West Bengal's Urban Development minister, Firhad Hakim, called him 'uncivilised and barbaric,' adding that Ghosh had disrespected women on Women's Day.
Ghosh's comments were made in response to questions about the incident at the university where students wrote distorted lyrics to Rabindranath Tagore's songs on their bodies using colours. The original lyrics were parodied using abusive words, and written in English and Bengali.
Photos of the incident went viral on social media and created a furore.
Many politicians and public figures had spoken out against the incident, starting a blame-game. State education minister Partha Chatterjee had said, “It is a shame for Bengal as well as its cultural heritage,“ as reported by the Statesman. Demands for the vice-chancellor, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhary, to step down were raised, and later he tendered his resignation.
"The vulgarity at the hallowed seat of learning point to a systematic attempt by the TMC to break the backbone of the student community of the state,” CPI-M central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said.
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