Union finance minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday hit out at Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar over his bizarre remarks on population control, saying it is a “shameful statement”. Addressing the media during a poll campaign in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal, Sitharaman said, “It is very shameful that a senior person who is the Chief Minister of a state uses inappropriate words to talk about women linking it with education in the AssemblyAppealing to the media persons “with folded hands”, the finance minister said, “Ask the leaders of the INDIA bloc and Congress family, shouldn’t they have strongly condemned it?
A woman from their alliance came forward and tried whitewashing the issue. This clearly shows the mentality of alliance that they are looking at women as a vote bank and nothing else,” she added.On Tuesday, Nitish Kumar while speaking on the importance of education among women to control the population in Bihar described how a woman can restrain her husband during sexual intercourse. “The husband’s acts led to more births. However, with education, a woman knows how to restrain him…this is the reason the numbers (of births) are coming down,” he said during the state Assembly session.
After a massive backlash, Kumar apologised for his remarks saying that he “takes back his words”.
“I apologise if I have hurt anybody. It was not intended to hurt anybody. I have always maintained that education is necessary for population control. I have also stood for women empowerment and women’s development,” the CM said.
Despite his apology, the BJP has demanded the Bihar CM’s resignation over the issue, claiming he has “lost his mental balance”. BJP’s Nishikant Dubey in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday wrote: “Do listen to Mahaguru Nitishanand Maharaj’s porn story telling and keep the population in control.”
