Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has sacked Forest minister K Ponmudy as DMK’s deputy general secretary following his alleged vulgar comments about women, and a ‘joke’ on different sects of Hinduism and Shaivism at a public event.
However, Ponmudy has not been removed from his ministerial post, leading to an uproar among the Opposition. The 74-year-old Ponmudy is one of the senior-most ministers in the DMK-helmed state government.
Though Stalin didn’t attribute any reason for “relieving” Ponmudy from the party post, Tamil Nadu’s forest minister K Ponmudy landed in trouble after a video went viral where he is allegedly joking about a conversation between a man and a sex worker. He also asks the women present at the gathering to not mistake him for his joke.
Among those who blasted Ponmudy were his party colleague Kanimozhi.
Terming his alleged speech as “unacceptable”, the DMK MP wrote in a post on X that regardless of the reason behind his speech, “such vulgar remarks are condemnable.”
BJP leader Khushbu Sundar addressed a post to Stalin and noted that his minister has a “disgusting” mindset.
“Will you ever have the guts to throw him out his chair and position? Or you and your party find sadistic pleasures in insulting women and Hinduism in making such disgusting comments??” Khushbu asked.
“Do women in your household approve of these insults when they visit temples brazenly? And most importantly, is this your brain that’s working overtime or not working at all?” Khushbu added.
K Annamalai, who recently quit as BJP’s state president, said Ponmudy’s remarks reflected “DMK’s standard of political discourse in Tamil Nadu.”
Noting that Ponmudy once served as the Higher Education minister and is currently the minister for Forests and Khadi, Annamalai asked whether “the youth of Tamil Nadu are expected to tolerate this filth?”
He added that if removing Ponmudy from a party post will lead to people moving on, then they are “sadly mistaken”.
Ponmudy courted controversy earlier also, making inappropriate remarks about women taking free bus rides. He also attracted attention by making a link between north Indian and selling pani puri.
