A shocking audio conversation has surfaced in which senior SP leader Mata Prasad Pandey is purportedly heard crassly objectifying a woman as a sex object while talking to an acquaintance who comes across as equally lecherous and misogynistic. As per some sources, the other man on the line is also an SP party worker.
Mata Prasad calls the other man to commiserate with him for the passing away of his father. But after a minute or so, the conversation takes a disturbing and sordid turn. Mata Prasad asks the man if his sister-in-laws also visited for the final rites. In particular, he wants to know if the wife of one Mangal had come – he describes her as ‘very beautiful and tall’. The other man, as lecherous as Mata Prasad, replies “Bahut mast maal hai bauji”, basically objectifying what seems to be his own married relative as “excellent goods”.
Mata Prasad (MP): “yes, what I saw the other day was very nice…you could not use (sic) her, no?”
Other man (OM): “No, bauji”
MP: “Why not…because she is elder?”
OM: “She is elder, she will refuse..”
MP: “Yes, that is why you are afraid…but she is very..”
OM: “Yes bauji, she is too beautiful, if I get her I will finish her (laughs)”
MP: “Mangal knows your nature very well, that is why he must be extra cautious…”
Mata Prasad Pandey is a 6-time SP MLA from Itwa constituency of Siddarthnagar district, UP. He also served two terms as UP Legislative Assembly Speaker.
Senior SP leaders talking in such disgusting fashion about women comes as no surprise to those who know Samajwadi history. Patriarch Mulayam Yadav had once explained rape as a “Boys will be boys” mistake while demanding leniency in punishment to rapists. He even questioned the very feasibility of gang-rape saying that it was not practical for four boys to rape a girl at a time. When Mayawati had accused Mulayam’s men for a failed rape attempt, Mulayam defended his party with “Is she so pretty that anyone would want to rape her”?
In 2014, when questioned by a lady journalist about the law and order situation in the state in the backdrop of the Badaun rape and murder case and the Azamgarh gangrape incident, then CM Akhilesh retorted, “I hope you have not faced any danger!”
Jailed senior SP leader, former minister and Rampur MP Azam Khan had made a derogatory sexist jibe against actress Jaya Prada who was contesting against him in the 2019 LS elections: “I brought her (Jaya Prada) to Rampur. You are a witness that I did not allow anyone to touch her body. It took you 17 years to identify her real face but I got to know in 17 days that she wears khaki underpant.”
In 2009, Khan had circulated morphed pictures of Jaya Prada in Rampur district. Both she and Khan were in the Samajwadi Party (SP) then. In March 2018, Khan reportedly called her a “naachne wali”. Incredibly, Azam Khan and other Muslim leaders like SP’s Moradabad MP ST Hasan (he of the ‘Interference in sharia caused coronavirus’ and other such gems) passed even more derogatory remarks against Jaya Prada in event organised to honour Khan after he defeated Jaya in the 2019 elections. That case is under trial.
Then we have SP MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq who claimed that increasing marriageable age to 21 would give women an opportunity to indulge in ‘awargi’ (reckless, immoral behaviour).
Mumbai-based SP leader Abu Azmi is arguably the king of sexism, misogyny and sexual objectification of women. He said men can be “possessed by Shaitan” if left alone with daughters, sisters. Defending Mulayam’s “boys will be boys” rape apologia, Azmi said that women who got raped were ‘equally guilty’ as the rapist, and ‘both should be hanged’. Azmi has also compared women to sugar and molesters to ants, and advocated that a woman should go out after dark only with her husband or father.
Is it any wonder that any sane citizen, especially women, shudders at the very thought of this pack of Samajwadis coming back to power in UP?
