Subscribe
Follow TNM's WhatsApp channel for news updates and story links.
Communist Party of India (CPI) Rajya Sabha MP P Sandosh Kumar has sought the expunction of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s remark describing Communists as “total cowards” from the official records of the Rajya Sabha. He called the statement “highly objectionable and derogatory” and said it constituted an attack on the entire Communist movement.
In a letter dated August 11 to Rajya Sabha Chairman CP Radhakrishnan, Sandosh Kumar objected to the remarks made by Nirmala Sitharaman in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, August 10, while addressing the debate on a resolution seeking disapproval of the Income-Tax (Amendment) Ordinance, 2026.
Sitharaman made the remarks while referring to CPI(Marxist) MP John Brittas’s political affiliation. She said, “They don’t have the courage. Communists in this country are total cowards. They can’t face facts. But they will go on filibustering, making noise.”
She also said Brittas should remain in the House to hear her reply as, according to her, he was “creating confusion all over, not just here, but in the country, because that’s the tactic the Communists adopt.”
Sandosh Kumar said the remarks went beyond criticism of an individual MP’s arguments and amounted to a sweeping attack on Communists across the country.
“The statement that ‘Communists in this country are total cowards’ is a sweeping and derogatory reference to the entire Communist movement and its members and supporters across the country,” Sandosh Kumar said.
He argued that the remarks disregarded the historical role of Communists in India’s freedom movement and their contributions to democratic and social movements.
He elaborated that Communist activists participated in the freedom struggle, faced imprisonment and colonial repression, and contributed to workers’ rights, social justice, and democratic movements. He said they “faced the colonial authorities with courage and conviction and made sacrifices for the freedom and progress of the country.”
“It is therefore deeply inappropriate and historically unjust to characterise an entire political movement as ‘cowardly’,” Sandosh Kumar said.
The CPI MP also stressed that Sitharaman was entitled to disagree with arguments made by any member of the House, but such political disagreement could not be turned into personal abuse or an attack on an entire ideology.
He described the Finance Minister’s remark as “not a rebuttal of an argument” but “a political slur directed at an entire movement with a long and significant history in India’s public life.”
The MP said sharp political differences and robust parliamentary debate should not become an excuse for personal insults or sweeping attacks on a political movement. He has requested the Rajya Sabha Chairman to expunge the objectionable remarks from the House’s official records, citing parliamentary rules and established practice.
Sandosh Kumar is the Leader of the CPI in the Rajya Sabha. He is also a member of the Standing Committee on Science and Technology, the Petitions Committee of the Rajya Sabha, the Consultative Committee on External Affairs and the Committee on Rules and Procedures.
