Maneka Gandhi and her shenanigans

Maneka Gandhi, a BJP MP and former Union minister has allegedly threatened a common man of slapping sexual harassment cases against him.

In the audios that are going viral in Social Media, she can be heard threatening a businessman with harassment cases who attacked a dog that bit his child. She threatens to put him behind bars and goes on to abuse him with filthy words.

Independent journalist Deepika Narayan Bharadwaj has released these audios in her Twitter page.

Ramalingam had reportedly hit a stray dog with a cricket bat after the dog had bit his daughter. In the clip, Maneka Gandhi can allegedly be heard threatening Ramalingam to implicate him in a sexual harassment case if he attacks stray dogs or animals again.

According to the police, “Ramalingam has hit a stray dog. This was opposed by his neighbour, Nitin and his friend Malati. This episode led to full blown arguments between residents of Crescent Road and Malati. She filed complaint against Ramalingam and Ramalingam too filed case against her. We have registered both complaints,” a police officer said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Sub-division) M.N. Anuchet too confirmed that the Highgrounds police had filed a Non-Cognizable Report (NCR) against Ramalingam as well as animal activist Malati and Nitin on January 2 itself. Menaka Gandhi starts the conversation by calling the businessman a ‘goonda’ and says that she has received several complaints about his behaviour.

She tells Ramalingam that he is harassing Malati Shah and Nitin and that he must stop harassing them. She then threatens him that she would arrange for a sexual harassment complaint to be filed against him. According to the clip, Ramalingam then apologised and tried to acquaint her with the facts of the case.

However, Maneka Gandhi does not listen and tells him that Ramalingam has been beating dogs with a cricket bat, to which he replies that he used the bat for self-protection and nothing happened to the dog. He tells her that the dog bit his daughter and chased his son, when Maneka Gandhi calls him a liar.

When Ramalingam says that he is not lying and that he has proof of the dog biting his daughter, the animal-rights activist calls him a ‘liar’, a ‘scoundrel’ and a ‘drunk’. The former Women and Child Development Minister again threatens to implicate the businessman in a sexual harassment case.

Many Social Media influencers started voicing against this egoistic behaviour of Maneka Gandhi. Journalist Swati Goel Sharma tweeted, “This is so scary. A powerful woman politician is levelling all sorts of serious charges on a common man without giving him any chance to explain his side, even threatening to book him under woman molestation case. What if the man is speaking the truth?”

Madhu Purnima Kishwar, women’s rights activist tweeted, “I know it for fact that Maneka Gandhi has hired real goons by way of vigilante activists They routinely inflict fake cases, blackmail people & extort money with full backing of Maneka Her animal shelter-total sham She took huge amounts of land grants in name of animal protection”

Manindra Agarwal, IIT Professor tweeted, “She called me twice when I was Deputy Director and showed similar disregard to civilized behaviour. First time, I told her to give whatever she is saying in writing and then I will take action against her. She backed off then. Second time, I told her to cut the call as I have no interest in talking to her. She threatened that she will ensure I do not become Director. I said be my guest. I am told she went to MHRD to complaint. The person should file a police complaint against her”

This is not the first time that the BJP MP had given threat through direct or indirect means. Following are some of the incidents

Threatening an NGO

As per the audio released by the Independent Journalist Maneka Gandhi heard talking to an NGO person. While talking to the NGO person, she says that two dogs are still not yet returned by him. She starts the conversation by asking the gentleman, “Do you want to go to court? Do you want me to have you arrested?” He replies, “both dogs are doing fine but stitches are still opening”. While the man in the other side heard talking politely, Maneka Gandhi gets angry and starts calling him as Bloody Swine and abuses him with a filthy word in Hindi. According to Deepika Narayan Bharadwaj, molestation cases have been put against two men from this man’s NGO Organization.

Ousting Temple Elephants

On July 2020, with the backing of PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals), Lakshmi, the temple elephant of Sri Manakula Vinayagar temple in Puducherry was ousted from the temple. The forest department had reportedly decided to keep the temple elephant Lakshmi at Kamarajar Agricultural Science Center in Kurumbapet for 15 days. Knowing this, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindu Munnani functionaries went on to protest against this decision to move the temple elephant Lakshmi out of the temple. In spite of the protests, the temple elephant was moved out of the temple. This move had hurt the religious sentiments of thousands of Manakula Vinayagar Temple devotees who seek blessings from Lakshmi every time they visit the temple. Meanwhile, PETA India started its propaganda to permanently move the temple elephant Lakshmi out.

With the continuous voices from Indu Makkal Katchi, devotees and animal activists on Social Media, the information reached Tamil Nadu Congress spokesperson Americai Narayanan, who had to seek the help of Puducherry CM, Narayanasamy and he passed an order to bring Lakshmi back to the temple. Supposedly, the BJP failed to keep the morale and trust of Hindu residents of Puducherry. Politically, the move by Puducherry CM to bring back Lakshmi gained scores for the state Congress.

However, animal activist, Muralidharan Shivalingam who had fought to bring Lakshmi back to the temple alleged that Maneka Gandhi was behind the ousting the elephant Lakshmi while talking to a Tamil Youtube Channel. Shockingly, similar attempts were made to oust the Elephant from the Kanchi Kamakoti Sankara Mutt. However, all these incidents did not find a place in the mainstream media.

PS Ganesh, Puducherry BJP functionary alleged that there is a conspiracy to oust all the temple elephants from South India.

Indu Makkal Katchi took twitter to criticize the actions of Maneka Gandhi, “They are the same gang who banned Jallikattu, got our local bulls and cows into performing animal category. They are the ones who go after Temple elephants, on the grounds of cruelty, but when questioned they say lack of paper work for the elephants”