MJ Akbar episode exposed BJP’s 'anti-women face', says BSP

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Monday slammed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for being “arrogant and insensitive” by not asking MJ Akbar to resign and said that the entire episode exposed the saffron party’s “anti-women face”.

“In this whole MJ Akbar episode, the anti-women face of the BJP Government has been exposed. By not asking the minister to resign, BJP is being arrogant and insensitive,” ANI quoted the BSP as saying.

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Amid the raging #MeToo movement, several women, mostly journalist, accused the junior external affairs minister of sexual harassment when he was an editor of a newspaper. The Minister, however, denied the allegations and filed a criminal defamation complaint against journalist Priya Ramani in Delhi’s Patiala House Court.

Responding to the allegations of sexual harassment by the journalist, Akbar said, "Priya Ramani began this campaign a year ago with a magazine article. She did not, however, name me as she knew it was an incorrect story. When asked recently why she had not named me, she replied, in a Tweet: “Never named him because he didn't 'do' anything."

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"If I didn't do anything, where and what is the story? There is no story. This was admitted at the very inception. But a sea of innuendo, speculation and abusive diatribe has been built around something that never happened,” he said in a statement issued on Sunday.