Former Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja rejects Magsaysay award

Former Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja has rejected Ramon Magsaysay award for her contributions to preventing COVID-19 and Nipah virus.

KK Shailaja stated that she will not be accepting the Ramon Magsaysay award as it is always given to an individual and not any politician.

"We discussed this together as a party and decided not to accept this. The Kerala government's intervention in the health sector were discussed. Also, they said they considered intervention to prevent covid and Nipah." further said.

"With all the respect to the award I wrote saying that I cannot accept this award due to some political reasons and also because it is a collective work. As an individual I am not accepting this award," she added.

"The decision is because they never give a politician such an award. I am a communist party central member because of that we decided not to accept, " Shailaja stated.

"As an individual and party core committee member, I thought not to accept this with all due respect to the award. When asked about comparing this to another historic blunder by CPI-M like when Jyoti Basu was not made pm, she said there was no need for a comparison like that. It's not right," she added.