A complaint has been filed with the Kerala Lok Ayukta seeking directions for removal of state Forest Minister AK Saseendran from the cabinet for his alleged intervention in a sexual harassment case against an Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader in Kerala, to ‘settle’ the matter. The complaint has been filed by Navas, who is the state general secretary of Yuva Janata, a wing of the Bharatiya National Janata Dal. The complainant has urged the Lok Ayukta to take appropriate action against the minister.
The controversy pertains to the incident of Minister AK Saseendran calling the father of a Kollam-native woman, who had filed a sexual harassment complaint against G Padmakaran, reportedly a state committee member of NCP, asking to solve the matter in a 'good way'. After the issue became a controversy, AK Saseendran denied the allegation saying that he called the woman's father thinking the issue was related to a party matter. The woman, who was a BJP candidate in Kollam in the local body polls last year, in her allegation said that Padmakaran grabbed her hand and humiliated her in social media by spreading her election poster.
Though the minister denied allegation saying he was not aware about the sexual harassment issue, in a purported audio clip of the conversation, the woman's father can be heard asking the minister if he called to talk about the issue of Padmakaran grabbing his daughter's arms. To this, the minister can be heard saying yes.
The issue of Saseendran's alleged intervention in the harassment case was raised in the second session of the Kerala Assembly by the Congress, which had sought his removal. However, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan defended his embattled colleague by saying that the minister had already made it clear that he had interfered thinking it was some party-related matter. The Chief Minister had also informed the Assembly that police were probing the complaint of the victim and there was no need to discuss it in the House. In view of the stand taken by the Chief Minister, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) staged a walkout.
The woman, a BJP member, has alleged that Padmakaran had asked her in March whether she had joined BJP to earn money and if so, he would pay her and had then allegedly grabbed her arm. However, she had not lodged a complaint then. Thereafter, he allegedly used to mock her at various fora and then on June 28 posted her election campaign poster on WhatsApp with a comment that her father got her to join the BJP for earning money. Upon seeing this, the woman spoke about the earlier incident with her father, following which they lodged a complaint with the police.
Earlier, Saseendran had to resign as Transport Minister from the first Vijayan government, in the wake of sleaze talk allegations against him. He was however reinstated back to the cabinet after a Kerala court acquitted him of charges.