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Updated: May 04, 2019 23:36 IST

A worker of Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) has filed an attempt to rape complaint with the police against the party’s general secretary and five-term MLA Pradip Yadav, who is the Grand Alliance candidate from Godda Lok Sabha seat, which goes to polls in the seventh and last phase on May 19.

Yadav represented the Poreyahat assembly seat in Godda district and had served as education minister in Bablulal Marandi’s Cabinet.

Marandi and Yadav are the founder members of the JVM(P).

The complaint against Yadav was filed by a former state spokesperson of the party with the Mahila Police Station in Deoghar.

The police said that as per the complainant, a resident of Ranchi, she had gone to attend a public meeting organised by Grand Alliance at Mohanpur in Deoghar on April 20. After completion of the event, Yadav called her to a hotel in Karnibagh area for a meeting.

Quoting the complaint, police said she was asked to wait in Yadav’s room. Around 8.45 pm, Yadav came inside and tried to rape her. When she raised an alarm, he left, but took along her purse which had Rs 2 lakh cash and some jewellery. As she was threatened by Yadav’s goons, she could not register a complaint and left for Ranchi soon after.

Vikash Chandra Srivastava, sub-divisional police officer, Deoghar, said an FIR had been registered against Yadav for attempting to commit offences of rape, (Section 511/376 of IPC), assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty (Section 511/354 of IPC) and voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or other means (Section 511/ 326).

Deoghar’s superintendent of police Narendra Kumar Singh said the hotel where the alleged incident occurred was sealed on Saturday. Police have seized the CCTV footage and the digital video recorder from the hotel. He said the woman had submitted details of alleged WhatsApp chat between her and Yadav as evidence, which was being investigated by the cyber wing.

“It is too early to reach a conclusion. We are questioning various people, including the woman’s vehicle driver, hotel staff and others,” the SP said.

Yadav denied the allegations, saying it was the last-ditch effort by the BJP to sway the polls in their favour.

“I am innocent. This is a political conspiracy to malign my character. To swing votes in their (BJP’s) favour, now they have brought out Shikhandi (a transgender warrior in Mahabharata) against me,” he said.