Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya has decided to pursue criminal defamation proceedings against Santanu Sinha from West Bengal even after Sinha retracted his allegations of sexual misconduct against Malviya. In a post on X, Amit Malviya said that Santanu Sinha’s statement retracting his allegations was qualified and not unequivocal.
Malviya further added that Sinha also failed to met the demands made in the legal notice sent to him on 8 June, and that the ‘purported apology is deeply problematic and reductionist’.
Amit Malviya said in the statement, “The alleged post was defamatory, calculated and malicious. The wide dissemination by opposition parties has added to the defamation. As such, I have decided to pursue Criminal Defamation against Santanu Sinha, under appropriate sections of the IPC. Other civil remedies may also follow, as would be advised.”
Statement on slanderous post by Santanu Sinha, President Hindu Samhati, West Bengal. pic.twitter.com/AwGXGPH9Th
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) June 12, 2024
The BJP leader added how Siha’s allegations were propagated by Congress and Trinamool Congress leaders. He said, “Santanu Sinha’s slanderous Facebook post of 7th Jun 2024 has created a spectre of a compromised political system, that thrives on objectifying women. It views working relationships, across genders, in public life, to binaries, which is demeaning, particularly towards women.”
In a Facebook post dated 7th June, Santanu Sinha accused Amit Malviya and other senior leadership of BJP of accepting sexual favours from leaders in West Bengal and in exchange providing them positions in the party. He accused West Bengal BJP leaders of sending women to Malviya and other senior leaders of BJP women in 5-star hotels to secure the president’s posts.
These allegations were then used by Congress and Trinamool Congress to attack the BJP and Malviya. However, after Amit Malviya sent a legal notice of defamation to him, he retracted his statement. In another Facebook post on 11 June, Sinha claimed that he did not level sexual harassment allegations against Amit Malviya and that his Facebook post had been deliberately misinterpreted by the Indian National Congress.
However, he claimed that his post was to warn against getting entangled in honey trap, not to target Malviya. The RSS member also said that he does not want BJP and its office bearers getting undermined in any manner by misinterpretation of his post. He added that as he didn’t write anything untoward in the post, he is not deleting it.
