BJP today charged a Union minister with "shielding" Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal, accused of sexually assaulting his junior colleague, and defended its government in Goa saying it is not showing any "undue" interest in the case as the crime "occurred" there.
Without naming anyone, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj tweeted, "Union Cabinet Minister who is the founder and patron of Tehelka is shielding Tarun Tejpal."
Asked about Tejpal seeking to shift his case from Goa while alleging that the BJP government there was taking "undue interest" in his case, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said that though primarily he would not like to comment as the matter was in court, the venue of offence committed by the man was not a concern of any government.
"That Tarun Tejpal makes Goa the place of occurrence of the incident... This advice was not given by the BJP," party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
Refusing to speak much on the incident, he said Tejpal has already admitted to his crime and is now trying to hit out at the girl and point fingers at her character and malign her.
"I do not want to honour Tejpal by answering the questions raised. But, it is like playing with the honour of a girl, who is the victim," he said.
The Congress and BJP are involved in a slugfest over the issue and BJP has rejected Tejpal's demand that the sexual assault case against him be handed over to CBI, saying he may use this as an "escape route" as he is close to the ruling Congress.
BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu had earlier said, "This (plea to give case to CBI) can be an excuse. It may be an escape route to get away... Congress likes Tejpal and he likes Congress."
Congress, however, rejected BJP's contention and claimed that there is no reason why this issue should be linked to politics and party spokesperson P C Chacko drew parallels of this case with the snooping scandal allegedly involving Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
