Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader BS Yediyurappa should retire from public life as he has been booked for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday, reported The Indian Express.
“Yediyurappa is involved in a POCSO [Protection of Children from Sexual Offences] case,” Siddaramaiah told reporters. “A chargesheet has been filed. Due to the mercy of the court, he has not gone to prison.”
The chief minister was referring to a case filed against Yediyurappa in March for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor girl. The 17-year-old girl is a rape survivor in an unrelated case from 2015 pending elsewhere.
The 81-year-old BJP leader is accused of having sexually assaulted the minor on February 2, when she, along with her mother, met him to seek his help in the rape case. Yediyurappa has denied the allegations against him.
Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday that that the charges against the former chief minister were serious. “What right does he have to seek my resignation after being involved in a POCSO case at his age,” the Congress leader asked. “This is not being highlighted at all.”
Earlier, Yediyurappa had sought Siddaramaiah’s resignation ahead of a protest march planned by the BJP to highlight the alleged irregularities in the distribution of sites by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority.
The alleged scam pertains to allotment of 14 housing sites to Siddaramaiah’s wife in 2021 by the Mysore Urban Development Authority in return for the acquisition of 3.16 acres of land owned by her.
POCSO case against Yediyurappa
According to the complainant, when she met Yediyurappa on February 2, she was asked to go to another room while her mother was explaining the details of the rape case. It was there that the former chief minister subsequently allegedly molested her, reported The News Minute.
Yediyurappa and his three associates, Arun YM, Rudresh M and Y Mariswamy, were also charged under provisions of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to destruction of evidence (Section 204) and offering bribes for concealing the offence (Section 214) for allegedly destroying a video recorded by the girl’s mother during the confrontation with the former chief minister after the alleged incident of sexual assault.
On June 14, the Karnataka High Court stayed the BJP leader’s arrest after a lower court issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against him.
Yediyurappa denied that he sexually assaulted the minor and told investigators in June that he was only helping her legally in the 2015 rape case.
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