Porn message row: Oppn demands Goa Dy CM’s resignation

The Opposition in Goa, in one voice, has demanded the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar over an alleged porn message which the BJP leader inadvertently sent to a Whatsapp group in the early hours of Monday.

While Kavlekar has insisted that his phone was hacked and he was in fact asleep when the message was sent from his phone at 1:20 am on Monday, women’s wings of Opposition parties like Goa Forward and the Congress have filed complaints with the state police accusing Kavlekar of outraging the modesty of women on the Whatsapp group ‘Villages of Goa’ and demanded his ouster from the cabinet.

“The BJP says it believes in ‘Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao’. But their deputy chief minister sends porn messages involving women on a public Whatsapp group. He does not deserve to be in the cabinet. His continued presence as deputy chief minister will also deter a police probe into the incident,” Pratibha Borkar, head of the social media wing of the Goa Congress told DH.

Kavlekar in a statement had said that efforts were on to defame him and unknown persons had hacked his phone to send the porn message and that a complaint is already been filed with the Cyber Cell of the Goa Police.

The Goa Bharatiya Janata Party unit has also backed Kavlekar.

“The Minister has sent me a copy of his complaint. His criminal complaint says that his mobile phone was hacked. He has filed a complaint with the Crime Branch. The truth will come out after the police investigation,” state BJP president Sadanand Shet Tanavade said.