Dehradun, November 10 (PTI) Uttarakhand BJP on Tuesday termed Congress leader Harak Singh Rawat's threat to retire from politics a "charade" to garner sympathy.
BJP's state unit president Mahendra Bhatt demanded that either the Congress remove Rawat from his organisational positions or he step down himself until the truth is revealed.
Jenny, a resident of Assam, stirred up the political landscape in Uttarakhand on Saturday, when she reiterated rape allegations against Rawat after almost 23 years and demanded a fresh CBI investigation into the matter.
In response, the former cabinet minister warned of a defamation suit against those trying to "tarnish his image."
The state BJP president cautioned the Congress against humiliating the victim and asserted that no guilty party will be spared this time.
Talking to reporters, Bhatt launched a sharp attack on Rawat regarding his threat to retire from politics, dismissing it as a mere political drama and a charade to gain public sympathy.
"In the current political climate, there is no need for a leader like Harak Singh Rawat to threaten or feign retirement, as the public itself ensures the removal of such figures from the political landscape. Former chief minister Harish Rawat and the Congress party itself are the most prominent and recent examples of this. The people of Uttarakhand have held the Congress accountable for corruption, immorality, appeasement, and an anti-development stance, consistently penalising them through the democratic process in successive elections," said Bhatt.
Questioning the morality of both the Congress's top leadership and Harak Singh Rawat, Bhatt asserted that if any sense of morality remains within the party or its leaders, "they should either expel Rawat from the party or he should voluntarily step down from his organisational posts until he is proven innocent."
"However, such an assumption of moral responsibility does not appear to be in the character of the Congress party or its leaders. If they were to exclude Harak based on such a criterion, they would end up having to sideline more than half of their leaders for similar flaws," the BJP leader claimed.
He said the law should be allowed to take its own course; police will conduct an impartial investigation and the truth will soon be revealed to all.
Bhatt also issued a warning to Congress leaders, saying that they must not engage in the "despicable act of subjecting the victim to further humiliation, akin to 'cheerharan' (a reference to the public disrobing of Draupadi in the Mahabharata)."
He emphasised that once the full truth emerges after investigation, neither the guilty nor the political enablers who shield them would be spared.
(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)