Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday advocated a probe into the alleged sex scandal involving JDS MP Prajwal Revanna and questioned the role of the Congress government in Karnataka in the case.

Prajwal is the BJP-JDS alliance’s candidate from Hassan, which voted on April 26.

The JDS on Tuesday suspended Prajwal from the party with immediate effect over the alleged scandal. The party core committee that met in Hubballi recommended his suspension to its national president and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, also Prajwal’s grandfather.

Shah said the news about Prajwal was “hurtful” and any insult to “matri shakti” and “nari shakti” could not be tolerated. “We are standing with the country’s matri shakti, we are standing with the country’s nari shakti,” Shah told reporters in Guwahati.

Targeting the Congress, Shah said: “The Congress wants to accuse us. I want to ask a small thing... whose government is there (in Karnataka)? It’s the Congress government. The videos would have been in your (Congress) knowledge.... Why has the Congress not taken any action till now? We don’t have to act. Law and order is a state subject.”

“I want to ask Priyanka (Gandhi) ji.... Instead of asking me and Narendra Modiji questions, please question your (Karnataka) chief minister and deputy chief minister on what their government is doing. Why has there been no investigation? We are in favour of a probe and our partner JDS has also said it will take action against him.... Such incidents have no place in society. The strictest action should be taken in such cases. This is the stand of the BJP. There should be no confusion about it,” Shah said.

A former cook of Prajwal and his father H.D. Revanna had filed an FIR on Sunday accusing them of sexual abuse. There are reports about Prajwal fleeing to Germany after the Karnataka government said an SIT would be formed to probe around 2,976 “obscene” video clips linked to him.

Prajwal’s suspension order stated that the Karnataka government had constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the case: “In this backdrop, as per JDS’s party constitution and rules regarding breach of discipline and punishment, Prajwal Revanna has been suspended with immediate effect,”
it added.

Prajwal’s uncle and JDS state president H.D. Kumaraswamy said the tenure of Prajwal’s suspension would be based on the SIT probe report and the government action on it. “If it comes in the report that he is guilty, he will be permanently suspended,” he said.

Additional reporting by PTI