Complainant in Mahua Moitra case now accuses Shashi Tharoor of molesting woman

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, April 16

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is busy campaigning in Thiruvananthapuram for securing his fourth consecutive term from the constituency, is facing an unexpected attack from Supreme Court lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai, who has accused Tharoor of “molesting” a woman.

Journalist Karan Thapar, named by Dehadrai in connection with the alleged incident, however, said he had spoken to the woman in question and “she flatly denied” that she was molested by Tharoor.

Dehadrai was the complainant in the cash-for-question case against TMC MP Mahua Moitra. Amit Malviya, BJP’s IT cell chief, also wrote on X citing the lawyer’s post.

Dehadrai took to X today, alleging Tharoor was involved in a molestation case that took place in a hotel in October 2022. The lawyer accused Thapar of going “out of his way to protect dirty Shashi”.

Taking note of Dehadrai’s post, Thapar asked him why he decided to make the 2022 message public “in the middle of the 2024 poll”. “At the time Shashi Tharoor was contesting for the presidentship of the Congress and Jai Dehadrai, in an attempt to malign Shashi and as some sort of vendetta against him, sent me one or more messages alleging misbehaviour on Shashi’s part with several unnamed women. One of them is the person whose name has been redacted in the text message he is circulating. I know her extremely well and contacted her on receiving this message and she flatly denied the allegations it makes,” Thapar wrote in a statement published on a portal. Tharoor has not said anything regarding the controversy yet.