Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Wednesday said the Dalit girl in Hathras of Uttar Pradesh had not been raped and she “was murdered to hide the truth”, the comment once again establishing his foot-in-mouth disease that often embarrassed the party.

“There was no rape. The girl’s mother is saying something, while the neighbours are saying something else. Lastly, the girl was murdered to hide the truth,” Ghosh said while addressing BJP supporters at a meeting in Calcutta.

Referring to a Trinamul Congress delegation that had been prevented from visiting the victim’s family in Hathras, Ghosh said: “Mamata Banerjee’s brothers went there to create a drama.”

Multiple BJP leaders this correspondent spoke to said Ghosh should have at least considered the dignity of the victim and her family before making such comments.

“What does he mean by saying the girl was murdered to hide the truth? I don’t understand why he spoke about the girl’s mother,” said a female BJP leader.

Ghosh was, however, defiant. He said his comments were on the basis of a forensic report.

“We as laymen cannot prove whether it was a rape or not... I was talking on the basis of the report,” he told a news conference.

It was reported on Monday that the Forensic Science Laboratory in Agra had found no sign of rape after examining the samples from the victim. However, experts contested the results which were based on the samples collected 11 days after the incident.

During the news conference, Ghosh shouted at a journalist, who raised questions about the acceptability of the forensic report. “You don’t have to think much about it... . Keep quiet,” Ghosh told the reporter. “The press was stopped from entering the village (in Hathras) because, you guys would have otherwise spread lies about the incident,” the Midnapore MP added.

The UP government had claimed journalists had been asked not to enter Hathras because the Special Investigating Team was at work.

The Bengal BJP chief seemed to have committed another faux-pas as one of his tweets on Tuesday showed a picture of farmers purportedly thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the new farm laws. The tweet read that the picture had been taken at Puntor village in the Kumarganj Assembly constituency of South Dinajpur. It was later reported that the picture could be traced back to July 12, 2020, and taken in the Kaimur district of Bihar.

“This is a true picture. If you have doubts you must go to South Dinajpur and see for yourself,” Ghosh told journalists who asked him about the tweet’s authenticity.

In the last seven days, Ghosh scored at least four own goals on various issues. On Saturday, he tweeted a doctored video claiming that BJP workers had been shot at by Trinamul goons at Budge Budge in South 24 Parganas. Later, the media-in charge of the state BJP issued a public apology and the post was taken down.

On Tuesday, Ghosh compared law and order in Bengal to the “Mafia-raj” in Bihar and UP. He said in a video message on Wednesday that his comments were being manipulated by a section of the media. “I was referring to the lawlessness that used to be there in Bihar and UP…This news is being spread to harm my image,” he added.