This Valentine’s Day, Raju Narayan Todsam will be licking his wounds and reflecting on the truth of the adage that two is company and three is a crowd.
The BJP’s Arni MLA was attending a kabaddi tournament to mark his 43rd birthday at Maharashtra’s Yavatmal on Tuesday night along with his alleged live-in partner, Priya Shinde, when his wife and mother arrived.
Video footage that has gone viral shows Todsam’s wife Archana hitting Priya repeatedly with a chappal, while the MLA’s mother pulls her by the hair.
The video, in which Todsam is not visible, also shows many in the crowd shouting at Priya, who tried to explain something.
“The two women abused Priya and then slapped and punched her before hitting her with a chappal. A woman in the crowd also came forward and slapped Priya,” an officer at the local Pandharkawda police station said.
Police sources said Todsam had come to inaugurate the kabaddi tournament with Priya, a BJP worker for whom the MLA allegedly left his wife and children. “When the MLA tried to intervene he too was assaulted,” said a police source.
Sources said Todsam and Archana, a tribal schoolteacher, were married for eight years and had two children.
“Now, the MLA lives with the other woman, who is a BJP worker. This had caused tension in the area,” a local BJP worker said.
In 2015, Todsam had been arrested for abusing and assaulting an employee of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board two years earlier. In 2017, he was caught on tape purportedly extorting money from a local contractor. Several BJP leaders in the constituency had then demanded that Todsam must not be given a ticket to contest elections again.
After Tuesday’s ruckus, the demand has resurfaced.
Todsam’s cellphone was switched off through Wednesday. Considering local sentiments, which are in favour of Archana, the BJP’s Yavatmal unit has demanded that Todsam not be allowed to share the dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he comes to the district on Saturday to address self-help groups run by women.
“Given his conduct it will be an embarrassment to see him on the dais when the Prime Minister talks about the welfare schemes he (Modi) has launched for women-run self-help groups,” said Ankit Maitam, the BJP’s tribal wing chief of the Vidarbha region.
Maitam said the party had given Todsam 48 hours to apologise and mend his ways.
“If he doesn’t, we will demand that the party drop him from Saturday’s event with the Prime Minister and also not allow him to contest the Assembly polls scheduled later this year,” he said.
No formal complaint has been lodged although all three women had been taken to Pandharkawda police station.