An apparent warning by the former chief minister Ajit Jogi to file a defamation suit led a senior Chhattisgarh cabinet minister T S Singhdeo to quickly express his regret over his remark he stated in media citing the father of Jogi as belonging to Satnami (scheduled caste) community.
Singhdeo, a senior Congress leader has been recently appointed by the party interim president Sonia Gandhi as chairman of the screening committee for the forthcoming Jharkhand Assembly polls.
After the high-power committee probing the caste status of Jogi didn’t recognise the 73-year-old former bureaucrat-turned-politician as a ‘tribal’ and rejected all his claims, the state health minister Singhdeo stated that “Jogi’s father was a Satnami”.
“To safeguard my self-respect, I will file a defamation suit in the court under the IPC Section 497 and 500, that have provisions for jail. I will do it after a week”, said Jogi in his letter addressed to Singhdeo asking him to accept his mistake and issue a denial.
Singhdeo recollecting his good family and personal relations with Jogi felt “sorry over his remark”. “If any of my statement spoken out inadvertently or out of ignorance has hurt you, I express regret for that”, the minister said in response to Jogi’s letter.