‘When rape is inevitable, enjoy it’: Karnataka Congress MLA in Assembly

A video of the incident has gone viral on social media.

The Congress leader made the comment as MLAs demanded time from the Speaker to discuss farmers’ issues in the Assembly.

Responding to this, Kageri asked members how he could run the session if time was allotted to everyone. Telling members to take a decision on their own, he looked at former speaker Kumar and said, “I feel, let’s enjoy the situation. I can’t keep this under control and take it forward in a systematic way.”

Responding to this, Kumar stood up and made the controversial comment. Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri is seen laughing in response.

Later, replying to a tweet about the incident, Kumar apologised and said, “It was not my intention to trivialise or joke about ‘rape!’ My sincerest apologies if I have offended you. But the situation in the House has deteriorated so much that I used that analogy! Will choose my words carefully in the future.”

This is not the first time Kumar, who is also a TV actor, has used such remarks with regard to women.

In February 2019, when he was speaker, he compared himself to a rape survivor. He made a statement during discussions in the Assembly on the Special Investigation Team probe into an audio clip controversy. The audio clip was allegedly of BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa in a purported conversation to lure a JD(S) MLA in his alleged attempt to topple the then-Congress-JD(S) government. Kumar pointing to repeated reference to charges against him, and said his situation “was like that of a rape victim, as they too are supposedly questioned about the incident repeatedly”.