Recently, two love stories made big news on social network, one was of TV anchor Amrita Rai and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and another one was ND Tiwari’s marriage at the age of 88. Digvijaya Singh and Rai were in love from past many years, but someone leaked their objectionable pictures in public domain. Ahead of assembly elections in many states, this episode brought lots of embarrassment to leader and his female friend. Finally, Digvijaya Singh announced their marriage but later with time this controversy subsided.
In another episode, Veteran Congress leader Narayan Dutt Tiwari, 88, has tied the knot with Ujjwala Sharma, the mother of his son Rohit Shekhar, in Lucknow. Rohit Shekhar, 32, had taken the former Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand Chief Minister and Andhra Pradesh Governor to court after Tiwari had refused to acknowledge their biological relationship. Prior to that, Ujjwala had stopped Tiwari’s cavalcade and forced herself in the vehicle. She was, however, forced to get down later allegedly by Tiwari’s personal secretary after whom she had lodged a complaint with the police. In Tiwari’s long-standing paternity tussle with Rohit Shekhar, the Delhi High Court on April 24 had declared Shekhar as Tiwari’s biological son. Leaders have their own dirty saga; whenever political motivation twisted their personal life, episodes come in public domain to embarrass them.
How can anybody forget Abhishek Manu Singhvi. After securing Rajya Sabha seat in 2012, he was caught in a compromising position in his Supreme Court chamber. Mukesh Kumar Lal, the driver of Singhvi for several years, was accused of filming the CD secretly and blackmailing Singhvi to make the CD public through various media channels. Another Congress minister Mahipal Maderna’s secretly recorded video shows former Rajasthan minister in romp with murdered nurse and midwife, Bhanwari Devi.
Indian politicians have had their share of undisclosed relationships. Most affairs between them are rarely talked about in the media, yet the rumours exist. Some relationships are hyped by media to such an extent that the leader had no face to stand in public. There are many known as well as some unspoken love affairs of Indian politicians. Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten’s love story is favourite in social network sites. Some ‘so called’ or self claimed political pundits even claimed that Nehru died because of HIV and he was a great womaniser.
Mahatma Gandhi’s love and lust story was cover story of one of the magazines. Sarla Devi was the niece of Rabrindranath Tagore. When Sarla Devi’s husband, Chaudhary Ram Bhuj Dutt was in jail, Gandhi was staying in his house with Sarla Devi. Gandhi stood to lose everything, at 50, he had fallen passionately in love with Sarla Devi. He considered their relationship as a spiritual marriage. The relationship has been expressed in numerous letters.
Kamala Nehru, wife of Jawaharlal Nehru, with her tranquil beauty was the object of beauty for many admirers like that of Feroze Gandhi (husband of Indira Gandhi and son-in-law of Nehru family). There have been rumours winding up of an affair between the two that ended with her death. It is still unclear exactly what Kamala’s feelings were towards Feroze was. Most of the letters point towards a spiritual relationship. However, these have been rejected by the Gandhi family as plain hearsay.
Indira Gandhi has always been one of the most debatable figures in Indian politics. Her marriage with Feroze Gandhi was mired with debate and after the birth of Rajeev Gandhi, Feroze and Indira separated. It has, thus, been speculated that Sanjay Gandhi was Mohammed Yunus’ son. Mohammed Yunus was Indira’s close aid and advisor for many years and they used to make many trips abroad together as he was her foreign aid. Mohammed Yunus’ mourning at Sanjay Gandhi’s death has been attributed to this relationship. It has often been reported that Sanjay Gandhi used to blackmail his mother because of his knowledge of his origin.
Let’s now talk about today’s politicians. Mayawati and Kanshi Ram’s loved story was most talked about love story of recent times. Kanshi Ram was her guide and the sole reason for her incursion into politics. They have always denied any kind of relationship between them but there have been speculations of Mayawati having stayed with Kanshi Ram after her father threw her out of the home.
In 1978, Babu Jagjivan Ram was on the verge of becoming the first Dalit Prime Minister of India but a sex scandal involving his son Suresh Ram put an end to his political career. 46-year-old son was shown in a series of explicit photos with a Delhi University student, Sushma Chowdhary, in monthly magazine Surya, edited by Maneka Gandhi.
There are many lust loaded stories about these politicians. Political sex scandals are about much more than just people getting caught with their pants down. Our netas are prone to indiscretions of a sexual nature.
Some of the more bizarre cases of sex scandals
A compact disc containing graphic scenes purportedly featuring Raghavji, 79, and the domestic help became public before the Assembly convened for the monsoon session. Raghavji, who was expelled from the party over his ‘sexual escapades’, is not the first politician to find himself in the line of fire. Certainly, Raghavji’s continuation was becoming an embarrassment for the Madhya Pradesh government in an election year.
He once used to be the RSS representative in the BJP. The RSS pracharak Sanjay Joshi had to sacrifice the general secretary’s post following the alleged sex CD controversy. The sex CD surfaced in the midst of the BJP’s silver jubilee celebrations in Mumbai. He was later re-inducted in the party but the disgrace never allowed him to regain his authority and command. BJP’s Gopinath Munde, then Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister image took a battering over his illicit affair with a Pune-based Tamasha dancer Barkha Patil. Pramod Mahajan was known to be Casanova and had many women in his life. Gopal Kanda, former Haryana Minister was accused of abetting the suicide of a 23-year-old former air hostess Geetika Sharma who was earlier employed in Kanda’s MDLR airlines. Amarmani Tripathi, former Uttar Pradesh minister was jailed for life for killing a young Hindi poetess Madhumita Shukla who was carrying his unborn child and had refused to abort it despite repeated threats. In 1987, PK Kunhalikutty from Kerala was rocked by a sex scandal known as ‘ice-cream parlour sex scandal’. The scandal relates to allegations that an ice-cream parlour in Kozhikode was being used as a cover to lure young women into prostitution. In Jalgaon, heavyweight politicians, businessmen and officials were accused of running a forced-sex racket involving approximately 500 women, many of them minors, in Maharashtra. Harak Singh Rawat, then Uttaranchal revenue minister, was accused in 2003 by an Assamese woman of having fathered her new born child. Indira Deori alias Jenny alleged that the Congress leader had fathered her only child.
There are many such rumours about Rahul Gandhi’s love story and secret marriage and some even alleges that Modi had an affair. These rumours are yet to be proven but they make way for loud gossips.
