'People with fewer votes than me got elected, totally undemocratic'; Ramesh Pisharody strongly criticizes AMMA elections

KOCHI: Actor Ramesh Pisharody seems unhappy with the recent election of office bearers for the movie artists’ organization ‘AMMA’. The actor has now sent a letter to every member, expressing his disapproval of the manner followed in electing the three women members to the Executive Committee. Pisharody called it as ‘undemocratic’.

'In a democratic election, the candidate who gets the most votes is the winner'. In the letter, Pisharody blamed the process of replacing the candidate with more votes to pave the way for women candidates (with fewer votes) as undemocratic and ‘tantamount to cancelling the will of the people’.

“Media could have made some fact-checks before putting headlines of my defeat in the elections, only because I secured more votes than the elected office bearer. It was indeed the duty of office bearers to clarify these matters but nothing happened” said Ramesh Pisharody.

"The easiest way to implement reservations is to reserve four seats for women. And it would be ideal not to make men compete in these categories. Although officials can save face by saying that all these were mentioned in the bylaw, the word democracy cannot be thrown into the drains in such a manner. To properly implement women's reservations, the bylaw needs to be amended." opined Ramesh.