Alappuzha, First Published Jan 23, 2022, 9:59 PM IST
Alappuzha: Aritha Babu, a UDF candidate from Kayakulam, wrote a letter to the Chief Minister explaining the ongoing cyber attacks by the CPM. Arita says the post is regarding the insults and insults that continue to be leveled by some of the CM’s supporters, party members and sympathizers even months following the election. He earns his living by raising cows and milking them.
He is the one who happily listened to your statement that he is proud to be the son of a cheater from the other side of the aisle. Arita wrote on Facebook that the abuse of her by some on Facebook and other social media hurts me as a woman, as a politician trying to stand out in public, and as a backward person in the social hierarchy.
Full version of Arita’s post
His Excellency the Chief Minister of Kerala Comrade Pinarayi Vijayan,
I am Aritha Babu from Kayamkulam constituency in the last assembly elections
He was a UDF candidate. Even following so many months following the election, your followers
This post is regarding the insults and insults that some of my party members and sympathizers continue to make once morest me.
For a woman from a life and social situation like mine
I see it as a great thing to be able to contest elections as a candidate of a mainstream front.
I make my living by raising cows and milking them.
Your statement that you are proud to be the son of a blacksmith,
Politically, I’m the one who listened with pleasure, even from your back. But the abuse of me by some who claim to be your followers on Facebook and other social media hurts me as a woman, as a politician trying to stand out in public, and as a backward person in the social hierarchy.
Candidates who come from a life situation like mine get special attention in the media during election time.
You may remember that when CK Sasindran, a dairy farmer, competed in Kalpetta, the media celebrated his simple life and farming environment. K Radhakrishnan, an agricultural laborer, not only when he first contested in Chelakkara but also when he finally contested in this Assembly election.
On the farm tied to the tortoise
Visual stories of the landing came out. I remember a news story when PK Biju, the All India leader of the SFI and a PhD holder, contested in Alathur. On the day Biju was nominated as a candidate, the news was regarding his mother returning from an unfinished house in Kottayam to pack bundles in the field. Journalists who did the job later said that Biju’s mother had stopped a job 20 years ago and was posing for the camera only during her son’s election. But one who understands that PK Biju’s politics is shaped by that mother’s past cannot ignore it. I will not do that.
Until the day the Congress party announces me as its candidate
The job I did was sell milk. That is my job, except for what I set aside during the election. Still, the day I write this is still the work I do. Naturally, the news regarding me was prepared with that job in mind. Your followers still mock me in the name of that job. Are you mocking my poverty, my job, and my social status?
Lakshmi Padma, a journalist on Asianet, is still abusing me and her for a program she wrote regarding me. I have a political conviction that I can gladly hear calls like “milkmaid” and “milkmaid” in their literal sense. But, “Milk is dry, Auntie,” “How can you sleep, Mutte?”
“Shall we have some milk tonight?”
Moreover, the stories of Linto Joseph (Thiruvambadi), R. Bindu (Irinjalakuda), P. Prabhakaran (Malampuzha), Eldo Abraham (Muvattupuzha) and Shelna Nishad (Aluva) were similarly aired on the same channel. None of their opponents or rank and file were seen as intolerant in this way.
I did not think that these were the ones appointed by the CPI (M) at the beginning of this abusive year. But I am disappointed that Lakshmi Padma, a public activist, and I, a journalist, have been so brutally attacked that no one among you has denied it. Changing thinking
I know some of the perpetrators of this abuse are criminals hiding behind fake IDs. Your cowards are cowards. But today I am ashamed of the political leadership who decided not to remember them, but to tell the people politics through them. If the progressive / feminist politics you are talking regarding is sincere, stop these culturally empty locusts. Or, if these are not their daily snacks outside the kitchen of the AKG Center, please discard them.
– Aritha Babu
Last Updated Jan 23, 2022, 10:47 PM IST