JVP trade union wing leader and former MP KD Lalkantha says that a remark that he had made recently at a meeting of a nurses union was taken out of context by certain social media activists with vested interests and twisted it to give various interpretations.
Asked to comment on the social media backlash, Lalkantha said that he spoke of the necessity of nurses to look attractive and have a pleasing personality which might help patients to be positive about getting well.
He advocated their going to the gym for the sake of their figures.
“I used some lines from Sinhala poetry describing female figure and said that under an NPP government the nurses too would get time to go to gyms. Now only this part of my speech has been extracted to make facebook posts to state that NPP would make it mandatory for the female nurses to go to gyms.
“They did not take the essence of my speech or the idea behind it. In a way I am not shocked to see this result because we live in a country where literature, art and culture have been massacred.
“Most would take only the superficial meaning. That tendency is made use of by mudslingers,” Lalkantha said.
“Anyone who wants to know the truth should view the entire speech of mine. It is now on the internet. Thereafter he or she would understand the truth.” .