Lucknow: The BJP expelled senior leader Babban Singh Raghuvanshi after a video allegedly showing him engaging in obscene acts with a dancer at a public event surfaced online and quickly went viral.
The clip, which appears to be from a wedding celebration, shows the 70-year-old Raghuvanshi seated with a female dancer on his lap. He is seen groping the woman in the footage.
Raghuvanshi, who was deputy chairman at the Kisan Cooperative Mill in Rasra, has denied any wrongdoing.
He has claimed that the video is doctored and part of a larger conspiracy within the party, hatched by supporters of Bansdih’s BJP MLA Ketaki Singh.
“This is a deliberate conspiracy to malign my image. The video is fabricated. Members of MLA Ketaki Singh’s family are behind this,” he said.
Raghuvanshi alleged that the incident is from the wedding procession of the Durgipur village head in Bihar, an event he claims was also attended by Ketaki’s family.
“They secretly filmed this to defame me. I have never done such things. I’m an old man now,” Raghuvanshi stated, adding that he will lodge a police complaint to verify authenticity of the video.
Ketaki dismissed the allegation against her ‘camp’. “He is my father’s age. I am hesitant to even react to the video. The video is said to be so obscene that I do not have the courage to watch it.”
Former IPS officer and president of Azad Adhikar Sena Amitabh Thakur has called for legal action.
In a letter to Ballia Superintendent of Police, Thakur described the visuals as “highly obscene” and “shameful”, and urged Uttar Pradesh cm Yogi Adityanath to order a thorough investigation into the video’s authenticity.
