JOIN USPrime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday intervened to find out the veracity of the rape charges levelled against a junior minister in his Cabinet, Nihalchand Meghwal, even as the BJP continued to defend the leader from Rajasthan.
It is learnt that Modi tasked two of his ministers — Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad — to go into the details of the case against the Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers given the growing clamour that the NDA government is protecting a rape accused minister.
Meghwal met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday to give his side of the story as women’s organisations insisted that he step down.
Both Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley are believed to be convinced that Meghwal was not involved in the heinous crime. In fact, Jaitley, in a meeting with BJP spokespersons and TV panelists, asked them to defend the minister.
In 2011, a woman had got an FIR registered in Jaipur, accusing “Nihal Chand” and 18 others of rape and other offences.
The BJP leaders argue that the police had filed a closure report before a Jaipur local court in December 2012 during the Congress regime, suggesting that the allegations were baseless. But the victim filed a revision petition in the case and the local court has now issued notices to all the accused.