“There has been nothing proved against Brij Bhushan yet. He is not convicted of anything. If he was, you could have questioned our decision,” said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman when asked about BJP giving the Kaiserganj Lok Sabha ticket to Karan Singh, younger son of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Brij Bhushan, the former Wrestling Federation of India president, has been accused of sexual harassment by several women wrestlers.
“How many people are there whose fathers, mothers or uncles have been accused of serious crimes, but they have still got tickets? All parties do it. Even children of people who have been convicted get tickets. And here nothing is proven against Brij Bhushan yet. If it was, you could have asked us why. How can we decide on our own that he is doshi (guilty)?,” the minister told reporters in Pune on Saturday. Asked why the party didn’t give the ticket to Brij Bhushan himself, Sitharaman said this was twisting the narrative. “We did not want to interfere with any due processes,” she said.
On the issue of Prajwal Revanna and rape allegations against him, she said Home Minister Amit Shah has already said that the BJP will support any action that needs to be taken. “But all this happened in a state run by the Congress. They knew of the situation and were in possession of the pen drive since a year. But they kept quiet, choosing to reveal all just before the elections. So they were playing games and not taking up any causes of women’s safety,” she said.
On the Rohith Vemula case, Sitharaman said the closure report came from the police in a Congress state. “The unfortunate boy had a wrong certificate saying he belongs to a Scheduled Caste while he did not. But this issue was branded as a Dalit issue the Congress used this tragedy for their agenda,” she said.
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