Hours after Supreme Court advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai accused Karan Thapar of protecting Shashi Tharoor in an alleged molestation incident, The Wire journalist has issued a clarification. In his reply, published on the leftist portal ‘The Wire’, Karan Thapar alleged that his message had been ‘distorted and misconstrued’. Thapar went further to accuse Dehadrai of leading a ‘witch-hunt’ against expelled TMC MP Mahua Moitra and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor by publicly revealing the partially redacted message.
Notably, on 16th April, the estranged ex of expelled TMC MP Mahua Moitra, Jai Anant Dehadrai shared his old interaction with The Wire journalist Karan Thapar. Apart from their chat, Dehadrai wrote, “Karan Thapar is a twisted and corrupt monster – the suave and articulate exterior is a scam. Went out of his way to protect dirty Shashi from me, in the hotel molestation incident of 11th October 2022 – rather than supporting the victim. Lutyens filth is astounding.”
Admitting the veracity and content of the purported chat, Karan Thapar said, “A text message I sent Jai Dehadrai sometime in October 2022 is being circulated by him in an attempt to distort and misconstrue its content and meaning.”
Accusing Dehadrai of “attempting to malign” Shashi Tharoor, Thapar alleged that he knows the purported victim extremely well. Notably, the victim in question allegedly levelled molestation accusations against the Congress leader and her name has been redacted in the chat.
In his response, Thapar has said that Dehadrai has misconstrued the events entirely and that the woman in question (whose identity has not been revealed by either party) has said these allegations are false. Thapar has called Dehadrai’s claims an ‘attempt to malign’ Tharoor at a time when the latter was contesting for the post of Congress party president.
Karan Thapar also claimed that when he reached out to the purported victim, she denied the allegations.
In his clarification reply, Thapar further states, “At the time Shashi Tharoor was contesting for the Presidentship of the Congress Party and Jai Dehadrai, in an attempt to malign Shashi and as some sort of vendetta against him, sent me one or more messages alleging misbehaviour on Shashi’s part with several unnamed women. One of them is the person whose name has been redacted in the text message he is circulating. I know her extremely well and contacted her on receiving this message and she flatly denied the allegations it makes.”
Claiming that his intentions were to stop a malicious campaign against Shashi Tharoor, Thapar continued, “My intention was simple and obvious. To stop Jai Dehadrai from maligning Shashi and also damaging the reputation of the lady whose name has been redacted. That is clear from the text even though it is redacted.”
According to Thapar, if Jai Dehadrai had released the full unredacted text message everything would have been clear.
Karan Thapar rubbished the claims that he was trying to “protect dirty Shashi” arguing that the Congress leader doesn’t need protection. While he has demanded that the redacted parts be also made public (which masks the identity of the purported victim), Thapar claimed that he was only trying to protect the victim.
He concluded by demanding that Dehadrai should make the full-text public. The Wire journalist demanded, “If Jai Dehadrai is an honourable man, he should make public the full text I sent him without the redactions and also the message(s) which he sent me which prompted my response. I also wonder why he’s chosen to make this redacted version public in the middle of the 2024 elections.”
It is pertinent to note that Supreme Court advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, on several occasions, has asserted that he had witnessed Congress MP Shashi Tharoor molesting a woman and former TMC MP Mahua Moitra chose to keep quiet about it.
In February this year, he made an explosive claim that a victim had approached him to share allegations against the Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. Taking to X, he also shared purported screenshots of the conversation where the victim claimed that on two separate encounters, Tharoor made her ‘uncomfortable’ with his behaviour.