Days after Amit Malviya sent a legal notice to one Santanu Sinha for accusing him of demanding sexual favours from women politicians in West Bengal, the latter has now cried foul over the matter.
Sinha claimed that he did not level sexual harassment allegations against Amit Malviya and that his Facebook post had been deliberately misinterpreted by the Indian National Congress.
He has now issued a statement backtracking from his previous claims but pointed out that he would not delete the controversial post.
The transcript of his statement goes as –
“It is a great chagrin to me that the nastiest and most corrupted political party of the country, the Indian National Congress, being armed with a post in Bengali posted from my Facebook account, is spreading hate campaign against Mr. Amit Malaviya and the Bharatiya Janata Party,
No corner in the post there is any whisper about sexual exploition of women by Mr.Amit Malaviya. Rather I have there expressed my fear if Mr. Malviya will be drawn to honey trap by the unscrupulous leaders of the party to remain clung to their post despite such debacle in the recently held election. We have bitter experience of such honey trap during the tenure of Mr. Kailash Vijoyborgiya, Mr. Siddhartha Nath Sing, Mr. Pradip Joshi and Mr. Shibprasad. To be noted that criminal case arising of that honey trap is still pending against Mr. Kailash Vijoyborgiya, Mr. Pradip Joshi and Mr. Shibprasad. Sushri Mamata Banerjee several times threatened to bring out clips of the honey trap.
But to my extreme astonishment, none from the State BJP has ever tried to know the purport of the post, but played a dubious role. A legal notice sent from the end of Mr. Malviya by his learned Advocate was circulated amongst media, purposely, with a view to create pressure upon me on the one hand, and on the other, to divert their responsibility of the debacle in last parliamentary election in West Bengal. Several press people told me that Mr. Jaganath Chattopadhyay, de-facto president of the state party, is the man behind circulating the legal notice [I have the audio clips which I will bring out when require]. However I am ready to contest cases, civil or criminal, as threatened in the said legal notice, if any, is iniiated.
I want to give a clear message that the post was not aimed to malign Mr. Malviya but as caution not to get entangled in honey trap, which first brought to light by Mr. Tathagata Roy, ex-president of the State unit and former governor of Tripura with the phrase KAMINI KANCHAN.
I, a Sangha Swayam Sevak, former State Secretary of ABVP and contestant in State Assembly election and in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation election, do not want the Bharatiya Janata Party and its office bearers get undermined in any manner by misinterpretation of my post.
Be precious, Rahul is my causin brother. He has been unnecessarily dragged into the controversy. He has no role to play in my Facebook post.
If my post hurts Mr. Malaviya and/or undermines my party for such misinterpretation and edited version, I do express my heart felt sorrow for the same. Since I have not written anything untoward in my post, with the mission to malign anyone, I am not withdrawing the post, the bone of contention.“
The Background of the Controversy
In a post dated 7th June, Santanu Sinha accused Amit Malviya and other senior leadership of BJP of accepting sexual favours from leaders in West Bengal and in exchange providing them positions in the party.
He accused West Bengal BJP leaders of sending women to Malviya and other senior leaders of BJP women in 5-star hotels to secure the president’s posts.
In a press conference on 10th June, Congress’s IT Cell chief Supriya Srinate levelled sexual harassment allegations against BJP’s Amit Malviya based on social media post by Santanu Sinha on Facebook.
On 8th June, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya sent a legal notice to one Santanu Sinha from West Bengal for making allegations of sexual misconduct against him.
As per the legal notice, the post against Malviya was published on 7th June 2024 on Facebook. The notice was sent by Supreme Court advocate Abhijeet on behalf of Malviya asking Santanu to take down the post and tender unconditional apology.
The notice pointed out that the post on Facebook by Santanu made “false and defamatory” allegations against Malviya with an “intention to harm his reputation.”
Santanu was asked to remove the post within three days. However, before the notice period could end, Srinate raised the issue in a press conference.
