BENGALURU/RAICHUR: A day after he was allegedly caught watching obscene pictures on his phone at a Tipu Jayanti function in Raichur, minister for primary and secondary education Tanveer Sait is under pressure from the opposition to resign. However, CM Siddaramaiah reiterated what he said on Thursday: that he would first wait for Sait’s report before taking a call.
On Friday morning, Sait’s office chamber in the Vidhana Soudha was locked up by irate JD(S) MLCs, who chanted slogans against him. The group included former minister for primary and secondary education Basavaraj Horatti, former deputy chairman of Council Puttanna, MLCs Chowda Reddy and T A Saravanan.
The BJP has already threatened to stall the upcoming winter session of the legislature in Belagavi, if he is not sacked. “It is unbecoming of Sait to indulge in this sort of behaviour,” said BJP spokesperson G Madhusudan.
Puttanna said, “When BJP ministers were found watching porn, it was CM who demanded their resignation. Now it has come back to haunt him.”
Meanwhile, Sait’s party colleagues have kept mum on the issue. Except for an initial defence put up by KPCC working president Dinesh Gundurao on Thursday, no party leader has come to his rescue. Energy Minister D K Shivakumar said that Sait appeared to have done no wrong but added that action should be taken against him if he was proven guilty.
On Friday, a complaint was also filed in Raichur by the local president of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, calling the minister’s act an insult to women. Raichur police said it would be treated as a petition and not a complaint.
Sait files police plaint
Minister Tanveer Sait on Friday filed a complaint with police in Raichur against the unknown number from which the “obscene” message was sent to him. “I filed a complaint under section 499 and 504 of IPC. I have also sought the raw video footage from the Kannada TV channel that aired it,” Sait said