A day after police booked two people for allegedly triggering a smear campaign against her on social media, CPI(M) leader K J Shine quoted Jawaharlal Nehru and Fidel Castro as she made a pitch for political parties to take a more “civilised” approach.
A school teacher who contested last year’s Lok Sabha election from the Ernakulam constituency, Shine has alleged that she recently faced a malicious and defamatory campaign on social media. The CPI(M) has accused the Congress of being behind the campaign.
Acting upon her complaint, the cyber crime unit of Ernakulam police on Friday registered a case against C K Gopalakrishnan, a local Congress leader from the Paravur area, and K M Shajahan, who had once been a close aide of late CPI(M) veteran V S Achuthanandan and now runs a YouTube channel called ‘Prathipaksham (Opposition)’. They were booked under BNS sections dealing with insulting the modesty of a woman, and IT Act sections dealing with publishing slanderous material on electronic media and causing nuisance through means of communication.
Addressing the media on Saturday, Shine said, “No woman or man should be depicted badly… All political parties should adopt that stand. All parties have the responsibility to elevate the social status of women.”
She quoted from Fidel Castro’s 1999 speech at the University of Venezuela, in which he had said that revolution can only be born from culture. “We are engaged in political and social work based on this,” Shine said.
She also said that those engaged in social and political work should read Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Letters From a Father to His Daughter’. Quoting from the book, she said all political workers should understand that to become civilised, one must distances oneself from one’s barbaric nature. Political movements should instil this fact in their workers and groom them, she said.
CPI(M) MLA K N Unnikrishnan, who has also faced a malicious social media campaign, alleged that it was Congress worker Gopalakrishnan who had set the campaign in motion. “There may be people outside Congress also to destroy my political future. The party has the system to find out. Gopalakrishnan’s social media post did not mention my name, but it was prepared in such a manner to point at me,” he said.
