Police file FIR against U’khand BJP leader Harak Singh for rape

NEW DELHI/DEHRADUN: Police filed an FIR against former Uttarakhand legislator Harak Singh Rawat on Saturday after a woman accused the BJP leader of raping her at his south Delhi residence.

The woman told Delhi Police that Harak Singh called her to his home in Green Park on Friday and raped her. Sources said she approached police on Friday night and registered a complaint.

Sources said the woman had alleged about a decade ago that Harak Singh, then a minister in the Congress government, was the father of her son. The minister had to resign from the government in 2003 and face a CBI probe but was cleared later. Harak Singh then claimed that he knew the ‘distressed lady’ but was not the father of her child.

Rawat, who started his political career as student leader, has often found himself linked to scandals involving women. In February 2014, a woman had filed a police case against Harak Singh for allegedly molesting her.

The 56-year-old was a prominent leader of a rebel MLA group that walked out of the Congress in Uttarakhand earlier, plunging the government into crisis and prompting the Centre to clamp President’s Rule in the state. But the Supreme Court scrapped the central rule and CM Harish Rawat won a crucial floor test in the assembly after the rebel legislators were disqualified from voting. Harak Singh and the other rebels formally joined the BJP about two months ago. “The Congress government is after Rawat and others even since they raised their voice against the Harish Rawat government. Let law take its course but we feel the fresh case was filed to frame him,” said Vinay Goel, BJP spokesperson.

But Congress that had backed Harak Singh on various occasions said politicians facing ‘sexual allegations” wasn’t good for politics.