Six-decade long political career of senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former finance minister Raghavji came to a disgraceful end three days after allegations of sodomy was levelled against him by a former male servant on Friday.
Raghavji was expelled from primary membership of the party on Sunday after a meeting of senior party leaders including Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, BJP State president Narendra Singh Tomar, and BJP national vice-president Prabhat Jha at the Chief Minister’s official residence here. An emergency Press conference was subsequently convened at party’s office where the news of expulsion of Raghavji was announced.
It is understood that the party took the extreme step in a hurry because it wanted to steer safely out of likely Oppositional assaults when the State Assembly meets for its monsoon session on Monday.Notably, while disclosing the news of Raghavji’s expulsion, Tomar rubbished similar allegations against BJP state organisational secretary Arvind Menon and party legislator Dhruvnarayan Singh.
Roughly at the same time when Raghvaji’s expulsion was announced, Habibganj police moved a step ahead in the matter and registered an FIR against Raghavji and two other persons under Sections 377, 506 and 34 of IPC for unnatural sex and criminal intimidation.
Prior to registering the FIR, the police had recorded statements of Rajkumar Dangi and others. Dangi had levelled the allegations and submitted an affidavit and a CD allegedly containing visual proof of the allegations to the police on Friday.