The Kerala leadership of the Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday apologised to Malayalee nurses for the “racist” and “sexist” remarks party leader Kumar Vishwas had allegedly made against female nurses from the State even as Chief Minister Oommen Chandy wrote to his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal expressing anger over the AAP leader’s remarks.
In the letter, Chandy said that Keralites were deeply hurt by Vishwas’s remarks and therefore he should withdraw his words and apologise. Pointing out that nurses from Kerala were being admired for their selfless service in many parts of the world, Chandy said that Vishwas’s act of humiliating them was not appropriate for the civilised world.
Stating that the AAP held nurses from Kerala in great respect, State party leaders KP Ratheesh and Manoj Padmanabhan said that Kumar Vishwas had made the controversial remarks in 2008 when the party had not even been formed. The Youth Congress had on Monday unleashed an attack on the State committee office of AAP at Kochi over the Vishwas remark.
Manoj and Ratheesh said that they wanted to apologise to the nurses who felt offended by the remarks and that they had put forward their demand for an apology from Vishwas to him through the national executive of the party. Even AAP members like novelist Sarah Joseph had protested against the remarks as contained in a video clipping that spread over the Internet.
The controversy involving Vishwas originated in the remarks he made – as per the video clipping – about Malayalee nurses while participating in a poetry conference in Ranchi in 2008. As per the video, Vishwas had described nurses from Kerala as “Kali-Peeli” (black-skinned) girls whom one would naturally like to address as sisters.