India: Controversial Right-Wing Ex-Defense Minister Passes Away

India’s former defense minister and serving chief minister of the western state of Goa, Manohar Parrikar, died Sunday, officials said.

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A technocrat turned politician, 63-year-old Parrikar was a senior member of the ruling far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He had been suffering from cancer.

While the BJP leadership and right-wing supporters are mourning the death of Parrikar, many women on social media are mourning by bringing up sexist remarks that made him famous.

Last year Parrikar said, “I have begun to fear now because even the girls have started drinking beer. So the barrier of that tolerance limit is being crossed."

He served as India’s defense minister from 2014-2017 during which policies attributed to him wreaked havoc on the lives of Kashmiris in Indian Occupied Kashmir in 2016. The Surgical Strike policy gave the Indian army the freed reign in the region in the name of national security.

The defense minister had also been caught up in one of the biggest scandals offar-right Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration , i.e, the the Rafale scam.

As defense minister, he oversaw the controversial deal to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation for around $8.7 billion, the country’s first major acquisition of combat planes in two decades.

The deal has been at the center of allegations because Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government paid too much and it forced Dassault to accept their Indian businessman Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence as its Indian partner despite the company having had no such prior experience in defense contracting.