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Ministering A Shock

The Raghavji CDs leave the BJP red-faced

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Ministering A Shock
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On July 9, a day when the Madhya Pradesh government was busy presenting a supplementary budget in the Vidhan Sabha, the MLAs, both from the ruling and the opposition benches, were more interested in the man who would have presented it—Raghavji Lakhansi Sawala, 79, the finance minister who had been sacked after CDs of him allegedly sodomising his male help emerged. Arrested on July 7 from a locked flat in Bhopal after the victim, Rajkumar Dangi, his help of many years, filed an FIR, Raghavji is now in jail. The young man has charged the minister with sexually abusing him for years running.

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Trouble began for the veteran leader when a CD surfaced showing him in physical intimacy with Dangi. It showed Raghavji lying on a sofa at his official residence with Dangi massaging his private parts. It also showed Raghavji sodomising Dangi. High drama followed: Dangi appeared at a police station and stated on affidavit that Raghavji lured him with the promise of a government job and then sexually exploited him. He alleged that he was slapped and kicked if he did not do the minister’s bidding. Dangi has also charged Raghavji’s brother-in-law and one of his aides with sexually exploiting him.

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Intitially, the ruling BJP tried to paper over the revelations, describing them as a “conspiracy” of the Congress. Then, a BJP leader,  Shivshankar Pateria, came out with the startling announcement that it was he who had had the CD made. What’s more, he said, he had as many as 22 CDs showing the minister in sexual acts. One of them caught the minister in flagrante delicto in the air-conditioned first class coupe of a running train. These revelations from one of its own leaders left the BJP emb­ar­rassed. The minister was  sacked from his post and expelled from the party.

But suddenly, the political games began: Dangi vanished; his father came forth with an affidavit that his son was “mentally weak”; that Raghavji treated Dangi as his son; that Dangi had also made such wild allegations in the past. That almost settled the matter. The ­police now said it could not register any case without the complainant formally ­recording his statement. The Congress swung into action. Dangi found sanctuary in the house of Ajay Singh, the leader of the Opposition in the assembly. He reached the police station accompanied by one of Singh’s lieutenants. It was with their support that an FIR was registered against Raghavji.

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Raghavji celebrated his 79th birthday on July 7, in his constituency and hometown Vidisha, only 54 km from Bhopal, but disappeared on the way back. After much electronic monitoring and squeezing of sources, police officers were able to zero in on a flat that was locked from the outside. Having obt­ained court permission, the team was able to break it open. Inside the flat, belonging to a nephew, were Raghavji and his wife. He was presented in court and remanded in judicial custody.

This is not the first sex scandal in Madhya Pradesh. In the late 1960s, Gangaram Tiwari, a minister, had to quit when nude pictures of him with a hospital nurse appeared in newspapers. Babulal Gaur, who replaced Uma Bha­rati as CM in 2004, had to res­ign after a press conference in New Delhi  in which a man alleged that Gaur was trying to seduce his wife and his wife’s sister. “He phones her and makes kissing sounds. I have also heard him tell her over the phone that he loves her,” the husband said. At that time, Gaur was 75. It was also in Madhya Pra­desh that a CD allegedly showing RSS leader Sanjay Joshi having sex with a woman was recorded. It may also be noted: Madhya Pradesh is the state with the highest numbers of rapes in the country.

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