Jaipur: A day after being questioned by the Rajasthan police with regard to the rape case filed against him, Minister of State for Khadi and Rural Industries and Dairy (independent charge) Babu Lal Nagar on Thursday tendered his resignation. Nagar sent his resignation to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and said that he chose to quit on moral grounds, so that impartial probe can be carried out. The 53-year-old Food and Civil Supplies Minister rubbished the claims made by the woman as baseless. “I sent my hand written resignation to the CMO through a person this morning. After many thoughts and second thoughts, I decided to resign…No one asked me to do this”, he said.
Congress leader Gurudas Kamat has confirmed that Nagar’s resignation has been accepted. Nagar has been booked for raping a 35-year-old woman at his residence on the pretext of providing her a ‘suitable job’. The woman in her complaint had said that the Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies asked her to visit him on September 11, and later sexually assaulted her. Nagar refuted the allegations and said he was being framed in “a political conspiracy”. “My house was swarming with people on September 11, the day when the woman says she was raped. I was not alone even for a minute,” said Nagar. A first information report (FIR) was registered against Nagar under Sections 376 (rape) and 323 (causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code at Sodala police station.
A police officer said the complainant was a married woman. She had approached a court recently, and the court directed police to register the FIR. After registering the case, police referred the case to CB-CID as it involved an MLA of the present Assembly. The state’s CID-Crime Branch had yesterday begun probing the charges of rape and assault leveled against Nagar. The woman’s statement was recorded and her clothes, which she wore on the day of the alleged crime, were recovered and sent for forensic examination. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had yesterday said that no one is above law and that law will take its own course.”I told earlier also during the Asaram case that no one is above law,” he had said.
Bureau Report
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