Belagavi: The five-member fact-finding team of BJP on Saturday reached here to collect firsthand information into the matter where a tribal woman was assaulted and paraded naked.
A delegation of MPs comprising Aparajita Sarangi, Sunita Duggal, Ranjeeta Koli, Locket Chatterjee and BJP national secretary Asha Lakra arrived at the Belagavi airport in the morning.
The team will not only meet the victim and console her, but will also get detailed information about the incident.
The woman was also tied to a pole after her son eloped with a girl from the same community at Vantamuri village in Belagavi on December 11.
Police have arrested eight people while eight others are still at large.
The Karnataka High Court has taken up the case on its own. It also termed the incident worse than what had happened to Draupadi during Mahabharata, as Lord Krishna came to her rescue, but in the Belagavi incident, no one came to help the victim.
The BJP will also be staging statewide demonstrations in all the districts condemning the incident.
BJP president J P Nadda and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman have also condemned the assault. In a statement, Nadda said such henious crimes especially against women, are happening at regular intervals ever since the Congress government has come to power in Karnataka. This also exposes the irresponsible behaviour of Congress governments everywhere in the country in tackling such crimes.
ALSO READ: JP Nadda issues statement condemning Belagavi incident, netizens ask "What about Manipur?"
In a post of 'X', Sitharaman said: ''In @INCIndia there is no 'nyay' (Justice) for the SCs and STs. The recent incident in Belagavi, Karnataka falls in the same category as those repeated atrocities against the Dalits seen till recently in Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. For Congress the downtrodden are just a votebank.'' Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah slammed Nadda for attempting to gain political mileage out of the Belagavi incident.
ALSO READ: FM Sitharaman slams Cong over Belagavi woman assault incident
In a strongly worded statement, the chief minister said the BJP's rule in Karnataka witnessed multiple instances of violence against women, but Nadda had forgotten this to politically target the Congress government. Unfortunately, he is using a recent incident of violence against a woman in Belagavi for politics, he charged.
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Lucknow (PTI): Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said his party has severed its association with the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) due to a lack of funds.
He dismissed speculations that the termination of contract was because of recent election results.
Addressing a press conference here, Yadav said the party had engaged I-PAC for a brief period ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections but could not continue the arrangement.
"Yes, we had an association. They worked with us for a few months, but we are not able to continue because we do not have that kind of funding," he said.
The I-PAC is a political consultancy firm known for managing major election campaigns across the country.
Election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor has also been associated with the organisation in the past and has worked with multiple parties, including the BJP and the Congress.
In a lighter vein, Yadav took a swipe at the ecosystem of political consultancies. "We thought that if we have to work with a 'winning agency', then there are several big companies."
He said that some people suggested conducting surveys, hiring another firm, keeping a social media company, and even engaging agencies for negative campaigning against other parties.
"There are one or two more companies whose names are not yet known. I can get those for you as well," Yadav said.
Yadav rejected the suggestion that the decision to end the deal was influenced by recent election outcomes in states such as West Bengal.
"There is no such thing. Do not ask questions based on baseless reports. That is not true," he said.
"This is not the reason for ending the agreement. We simply do not have enough funds. If you (the media) give us funds, we can hire another company," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.
