Transport minister C P John has refused to apologise for what is widely seen as both condescending and insensitive remarks on women but the CPM is in no mood to let the minister walk away without a fight. 

Former minister and CPM Central Committee member P Rajeeve was the first to hit back. He wondered whether the minister should continue in office. 

"At the start, the minister told the women to travel with pride. They were also told it was not a favour. And now this move to discredit the women, I feel l, is part of attempts to somehow abandon the scheme (Priyadarshini free bus ride for women). It has to be discussed whether a minister who has insulted women should remain in office. Never before has Kerala women been slighted in this manner," Rajeeve said.

CPM state secretary M V Govindan said that the transport minister had insulted womanhood. "He should apologise to Kerala," Govindan said. "The women in Kerala are an empowered lot. They rule more than 50 per cent of our local bodies. They have progressed through education and reform movements and also through collectives like Kudumbashree. It is these women that the minister has insulted," Govindan said.

He said such remarks stemmed from the minister's "chauvinist thinking". "Has any women applied for this (free bus ride scheme)," Govindan asked. "It was a UDF promise. Still, why is he disrespecting women who were making use of the benefit? And once in power, to limit the benefit to just ordinary buses was the first betrayal," Govindan said.

Rajeeve said there was yet another betrayal. "They started this project (Priyadarshini) after winding up the Sthree Suraksha pension of ₹1000 for poor women. Now they have been denied the pension and have to suffer insults," Rajeeve said.

The transport minister had the other day said that though women send their children to rich schools they would opt for crowded government hospitals when someone in the family is sick. This remark, both Govindan and Rajeeve said, was part of a sinister design to scare people away from government hospitals and force them to take refuge in costly private hospitals.  

"You have the right to interpret it however you wish. Let it be interpreted; let controversies happen. I stand firm by what I said," C P John told reporters in Kochi early on Tuesday. 

At the state conference of Kerala Bus Transport Association in Palakkad, the minister had suggested that women who fight their way into crowded KSRTC buses for a free ride were, when it comes to education, behaving like they were rich.

"I don't understand their behaviour. A woman who has no money to travel is sending her children to a private school. Government school seats are lying vacant. Instead of sending them to government schools, even to private schools where education is free, they are admitting their kids to schools that charge high fees," he said.

The same woman, John said, would take her "father and husband and wait for hours on the verandah of government hospitals". The minister's remarks are problematic on two counts.

One, he was being insensitive by ridiculing women who sacrifice their wellbeing to secure quality education for their kids. Two, the minister saw a woman's decision to take her family to a government hospital not as a sign of trust in Kerala's public health but as the desperation of the poor. It also unnecessarily paints a disagreeable image of government hospitals.