The Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case took its first political toll on Wednesday when Bihar Social Welfare Minister Kumari Manju Verma resigned from the Cabinet. Her husband Chandeshwar Verma is accused of frequently visiting the shelter home, and was in regular touch with Brajesh Thakur, owner of the NGO which was running the shelter home.
The Minister put in her papers after the media expose of the call detail report (CDR) of Thakur’s mobile phone showed that he spoke her husband 17 times in five months.
Verma belongs to the powerful Kushwaha caste, which has mostly backed Nitish Kumar on successive polls. That was the obvious reasons she continued to cling to her chair for so long despite clamour for her resignation.
Hours before Verma’s “forced” resignation, a woman activist blackened Brajesh’s face with ink when he was being taken to the POCSO court in Muzaffarpur. Before that, Brajesh admitted in front of the media that he was in contact with Minister’s husband.
After Brajesh’s admission, Nitish called Manju, the only woman Minister in his Cabinet, to his residence and asked her to put in her papers. Till two days back, the CM had defended her despite demand for her resignation not only from the Opposition, but also from senior leaders of the BJP.
But Manju, who faced the media after her return from the CM residence, kept on repeating “My husband is innocent”. She demanded that the CDR of Brajesh’s phone should be brought in public domain and numbers of all the people should be revealed.
“There was no pressure on me; I resigned on my own,” she claimed. Nitish was under tremendous pressure from his own party and the ally, apart from the Opposition and the media, to expel her from the Cabinet, at least till the completion of the CBI probe.
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Muzaffarpur home abuse takes first toll: Minister quits
The Social Welfare Department is supposed to fund the shelter homes. The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in its report had raised finger of accusation on several such shelter homes and irresponsible attitude of the officers and staff of the department.
Wife of one accused officer Ravi Roshan, now in jail, had accused Minister’s husband of regularly visiting the shelter home. This allegation had put Nitish in highly embarrassing position and he was accused of defending her.
The issue had caused a rift in the BJP as the senior party leaders like CP Thakur and Gopal Narain Singh wanted her resignation but the local BJP leaders including Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi and State BJP chief Nityanand Rai tried to defend her.
It was for the first time on Wednesday that main accused Brajesh Thakur faced media when he was taken to POCSO court in Muzaffarpur. Chewing pan and wearing white shirt and blue trousers, a smiling Thakur claimed that he was seriously thinking to join the Congress and wanted to contest lok Sabha polls from Muzaffarpur.
“My application by the Congress was almost final. I have been implicated in this case out of political conspiracy. I have nothing to do with what reportedly happened with the girls. But no girl in her statement named me; you can check in case diary,” he told mediapersons from behind caged window of the prison vehicle.
Bihar Congress leaders were quick to deny Thakur’s utterances and said he was forced to make such statement.
After stepping out of the vehicle as he proceeded towards the court, a social activist Priya Raj managed to reach near him despite a security cordon and threw black ink on Thakur’s face. The ink left black spots on his face, which he was seen wiping with handkerchief and on his white shirt.