Chennai, Mar 26 (IANS): The National Democratic Alliance comprising the AIADMK, BJP and PMK has decided to campaign extensively against the 'sexist' remark made by DMK's propaganda secretary Dindigul Leoni while campaigning for the party's candidate from the Thondamuthur constituency in Coimbatore district, Karthikeya Sivasenapathy.
A video clip of Leoni's body-shaming women has gone viral in which he could be heard saying that "women have lost their figures after consuming the milk of foreign cows".
He further said, "There are several types of cows. The milkman will get milk from the foreign cows using machines. The women and children have become 'bloated' after drinking that milk. Once a woman's figure looked like the number 8. They could carry children on their hips. But now, if they hold a child, it slips away because they have become like a barrel."
The NDA has already taken to the social media against the remarks of the DMK campaigner, and it intends to take out a door-to-door campaign across Tamil Nadu to highlight the 'attitude of DMK towards women'.
The BJP's culture wing secretary Gayatri Raghuraman has asked DMK leader and MP Kanimozhi to respond to the "sexist" remark made by the party's star campaigner, who's also a TV talk show judge.
AIADMK leader M.P. Rajashekharan told IANS, "This is intolerable and is a clear indicator of the mindset of the DMK people. The party must take stringent action against those who make such remarks against women. This is not our culture. Tamil culture always holds women in high reard."
The DMK candidate from Thondamuthur, Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, is breeding native cows and the speech of Leoni was meant to highlight the use of native cows. However, he went overboard and even made lewd gestures using his fingers while making the speech against women.
John Augustine, a journalist with a Tamil vernacular publication, told IANS, "This man used to make tongue-in-cheek remarks and sometimes the crowd used to enjoy, but this is too much. He should be reprimanded and taken to task. He should never have the guts to speak like this again in a public space."