New Delhi: Senior journalist Karan Thapar has hit out at lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai for a recent tweet. Dehadrai is the former partner of Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra, and had been at the forefront of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign against her which had led to her controversial expulsion from parliament. Opposition leaders and others have held that the BJP wanted her out of parliament because of the uncomfortable questions she was asking the Modi government about its ties with the Adani Group.
In his tweet, Dehadrai has alleged that Thapar protected Congress leader Shashi Tharoor after a “molestation incident” in 2022. In his response, Thapar has said that Dehadrai has misconstrued the events entirely, and that the woman in question (whose identity has not been revealed by either party) has said these allegations are false. Thapar has called Dehadrai’s claims an “attempt to malign” Tharoor at a time when the latter was contesting for the post of Congress party president.
Thapar hosts a regular interview show for The Wire.
Read Thapar’s full statement below.
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A text message I sent Jai Dehadrai sometime in October 2022 is being circulated by him in an attempt to distort and misconstrue its content and meaning. Let me, therefore, clarify.
At the time Shashi Tharoor was contesting for the Presidentship of the Congress Party 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.
I then tried to contact Jai Dehadrai on the phone to tell him to stop this attempt to malign Shashi. As he would not answer I sent him the text message which has been, in a redacted form, made public.
If Jai Dehadrai had released the full unredacted text message everything would have been clear.
My intention was simple and obvious. To stop Jai Dehadrai maligning Shashi and also damaging the reputation of the lady whose name has been redacted. That is clear from the text even though it is redacted.
The claim that I was “protecting dirty Shashi” is nonsense because he needs no protection and I don’t believe he is in any way dirty. But, yes, I was protecting the lady whose name has been redacted.
If Jai Dehadrai is an honourable man he should make public the full text I sent him without the redactions and also the message(s) which he sent me which prompted my response. I also wonder why he’s chosen to make this redacted version public in the middle of the 2024 elections?
