Kolkata lawyer claims his statement about Malviya Bengal BJP 'misinterpreted'

    Kolkata, Jun 11 (PTI) Kolkata-based lawyer Santanu Sinha, who was served a legal notice for making "false and defamatory allegations" against BJP’s IT head Amit Malviya and the party's West Bengal unit, on Tuesday claimed that his statements were “misinterpreted”.
    Sinha also said he was not withdrawing the social media post but expressed “heartfelt sorrow” if it hurt Malviya.
    "If my post hurts Mr Malviya and/or undermines my party for such misinterpretation and edited version, I do express my heartfelt sorrow for the same. Since I have not written anything untoward in my post, with the mission to malign, I am not withdrawing the post, the bone of contention,” he said in a Facebook post.
    When contacted, Sinha said this is not an "apology” but an attempt to clear the air on the entire controversy as to how his statements were “misinterpreted”.
    “This is not an apology. I wrote this fresh post as I wanted to clarify my position, following so much misinterpretation and misrepresentation of my previous post,” he told PTI.
    In his social media post, the lawyer said, “It is a great chagrin to me that the nastiest and most corrupt 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 Amit Malviya and the Bharatiya Janata Party.”
    Sinha also expressed his astonishment that none from the state BJP has ever tried to know the purpose of the post, but played a "dubious role".
    “I want to give a clear message that the post was not aimed to malign Malviya but as caution not to get entangled in honey trap, which was first brought to light by Tathagata Roy, ex-president of the state unit and former governor of Tripura with the phrase Kamini Kanchan (women and money),” he said
    BJP IT department head Amit Malviya has sent a legal notice to Sinha for making "false and defamatory statements" against him and demanded an apology for it.
    In the legal notice, Malviya's lawyer said Sinha, in a post on Facebook, made "some false and defamatory allegations" with an intention to harm his client's reputation.
    West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar on Monday had dubbed the allegations against Malviya as "baseless" and "politically motivated".

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)