New Delhi, September 24
Industry reacted strongly to the comments of labour minister Oscar Fernandes today forcing the Congress to go into damage-control mode and forcing the minister to apologise for his remarks on the killing of a multi-national company’s CEO by the workers here.
The labour minister had described the killing of a multinational CEO as a “warning” to CEOs and said it was a result of the simmering discontent among the workers.
On Monday, over 250 former employees, who were protesting their termination, beat Graziano’s CEO L.K. Chowdhury to death.
As the members of the industry reacted by asking questions whether the public should also lynch the non-performing ministers, the government went into a huddle discussing ways to avert repercussions of the controversial remarks by the minister and forced him to apologise after the meeting.
Signifying the seriousness the government attaches to the issue, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, who chairs cabinet meetings in the absence of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, deliberated upon the issue with senior ministerial colleagues home minister Shivraj Patil and A.K. Antony, besides Fernandes.
The senior ministers are understood to have taken a serious view of Fernandes’s comments. Emerging from the meeting, Fernandes said, “I would like to put an end to this chapter by saying I am sorry”
He also said that his comments had been “misunderstood” and offered “profound apologies to everybody who had felt hurt”.
Reflecting the reactions, which he would have faced from his other senior colleagues in the cabinet, the minister said he was for the poor sections of the people and was raising their voice. “If I have no right to speak, I will never speak,” he said.
Fernandes had yesterday kicked up a controversy by describing the killing of the CEO of Italian auto component manufacturing company Graziano a result of “simmering discontent” among the workers and said it was a “warning” to managements of companies.
As another step towards controlling the ballooning controversy, commerce minister Kamal Nath also issued a statement condemning the killing of the CEO. Meanwhile, Graziano officials here said work would most probably resume at the Greater Noida plant by Monday.
