BJP leader Dushyant Gautam asks U’khand Home Secretary to remove ‘audio’ clip maligning his political image from social media

BJP national general secretary and Uttarakhand in-charge Dushyant Gautam has asked the state home department to act against the alleged misleading campaign against him. He has demanded that the state Home Secretary ban 47 social media channels.

Reacting to the allegations of a woman claiming to be the wife of former BJP MLA from Haridwar Suresh Rathore, the BJP national general secretary has written a letter to Uttarakhand Home Secretary Shailesh Bagoli stating that a misleading campaign is going on against him on social media. Gautam demanded that strict action be taken against the campaign.

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The letter sent by the senior BJP leader on Thursday stated that “Some antisocial elements have made a fake audio of mine as a part of their criminal conspiracy. The fake audio is being used to denigrate my political and social honour, as it’s being used in several mainstream and social media outlets.” In his letter, he provided a list of 47 Facebook identities, social media handles, Instagram identities, YouTube channel addresses, and X accounts and asked that a ban be imposed on them.

The BJP national general secretary alleged that he was being targeted through these social media accounts and channels. Gautam asked the Uttarakhand Home Secretary to remove the controversial audio from social media and issue necessary directives to the social media platforms and news channels concerned.

A television actress from Haridwar, claiming to be a BJP worker and wife of the expelled party MLA from Haridwar’s Jwalapur, had in one of her Facebook reels claimed that Gautam was the ‘VIP’ who visited Vanantara Resort in Rishikesh a night before 19-year-old receptionist Ankita Bhandari was killed in September 2022.

The main accused, Pulkit Arya, a resort owner, and his two associates involved in the killing of the receptionist were sentenced to life imprisonment by the court after a one-and-a-half-year trial this year. The prosecution had alleged in the court that the accused men forced Ankita Bhandari to provide “extra service” to a “VIP”, which was refused by the deceased girl.