TMC's Sushmita Dev slams BJP over Hassan sex scandal, says party condoned Revanna by giving ticket

The BJP leaders, who make women's security a big issue in Bengal and the rest of the country, should hang their heads in shame, TMC leader Sushmita Dev stressed.

New Delhi: Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Sushmita Dev on Monday slammed the BJP over the alleged sex scandal involving Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna of the JD(S) and criticised the BJP for backing the accused.

In a video statement issued after a letter written by BJP leader Devaraj Gowda to the Karnataka BJP president informing him about a pen drive with the alleged videos surfaced, Dev accused the BJP of hypocrisy.

She said the scandal that unfolded "goes to the top".

"The national media has just revealed that the Revanna sex scandal that has just unfolded in Karnataka of a JD(S) MP, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party, actually runs much deeper. In fact, it goes to the top.

"A former BJP candidate, Devraj Gowda, says that he had brought the entire sex scandal to the notice of Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi," Dev said.

But, she said, no attention was paid to the issue. The BJP leaders, who make women's security a big issue in Bengal and the rest of the country, should hang their heads in shame, she stressed.

The BJP is very much a part of the kind of sexual abuse that that has unfolded, she said.

"The BJP very much condoned him by giving him a ticket. And the BJP's blatant hypocrisy on gender justice and respect for women is in tatters. Shame on you, Bharatiya Janata Party," she said.

Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera shared on X a letter written by Devaraj Gowda to the Karnataka BJP president on December 8 last year.

He said the letter exposed the presence of a pen drive full of "sleaze videos of Prajwal Revanna".

Several sex videos allegedly featuring Revanna with multiple women have been doing the rounds in recent days. He is the grandson of JD(S) patriarch and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, and the NDA candidate from the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency which went to polls on April 26.

According to police sources, Revanna has fled the country. The Karnataka government has announced a Special Investigation Team to probe the "obscene videos case".