Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) president and former MP Simranjit Singh Mann Thursday made derogatory remarks against BJP MP Kangana Ranaut, who had recently courted controversy with her comments on the farmers’ protest.
Mann, 79, made the disparaging remarks, mentioning “rape” when a reporter in Karnal asked him to comment on an interview given by the Mandi MP.
The actor-politician recently posted a clip from the interview in which she suggested that a “Bangladesh-like situation” could have erupted in India.
She alleged that bodies were hanging and rapes were taking place during the farmers’ protest against the now-repealed agri laws.
Ranaut reacted sharply to Mann’s comments.
“It seems this country will never stop trivialising rape,” she posted on X.
No wonder rapes and violence against women are “so deep-rooted in the psyche of this patriarchal nation” that they are used to mock even high-profile filmmakers and politicians, she added.
Haryana State Commission for Women chairperson Renu Bhatia also condemned Mann’s comments. Giving such a statement is an “insult to our daughters”, she said.
Mann, a former Indian Police Service official who has been a proponent of Khalistan, was in Karnal to attend a party event.
The Haryana Assembly polls are being held on October 1.
Mann resigned from the IPS in 1984 following Operation Bluestar at Amritsar’s Golden Temple to flush out militants hiding in the complex.
He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Tarn Taran in 1989, Sangrur in 1999 and from the same constituency again in a 2022 bypoll.
PTI