A heated political controversy has emerged over the alleged sex scandal involving JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna, with the Congress on Monday targeting the Narendra Modi government for “shielding” its Karnataka ally for political gains.

Addressing a press conference, Karnataka Women and Child Welfare Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar said hundreds of girls and women, including minors, have faced sexual harassment at the hands of Prajwal.

Refering to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent ‘mangalsutra’ attack on the Congress, she said, “Modi is talking about the protection of mangalasutras of Hindu women. Are these women not Hindus? What about their mangalasutras? The PM should speak up.”

“Hundreds of girls and women, from the age of 16 to 60 years, have faced sexual harassment at the hands of MP Prajwal Revanna. There are even police officials and anganwadi workers apart from SC/ST women, labourers and maids,” she added.

A case was registered on Sunday against former prime minister Deve Gowda’s son H D Revanna and grandson Prajwal Revanna, respectively, for sexually abusing many women and minor girls. The case was registered on a complaint by their cook, who alleged that four months after she started working for them, H D Revanna used to sexually harass her and Prajwal made video calls to her daughter and had “vulgar conversations” with her.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka government has formed a Special Investigation Team to probe charges against the JD(S) MP, who is also the NDA’s joint candidate from Hassan constituency.

Commenting on the matter, former Karnataka chief minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader H D Kumaraswamy asserted if anyone was involved in any wrongdoing, the person will have to face punishment according to provisions in the law. He also questioned the timing of the release of the obscene videos.

“Three days ago who released it, and why it was released now, why wasn’t it released before? Why has the old issue been released at the time of the elections? The SIT has been formed, let the truth come out and punishment has to be borne by those who committed mistakes, as per the law of the land,” news agency ANI quoted Kumaraswamy as saying.

“As far as the Hassan election is concerned, we have first-hand information that our candidate will win. Everybody is saying that. Also, I want to ask Congress leaders why bringing family names into it and talk about that particular person. It is not a family issue. Why bring H D Kumaraswamy and Deve Gowda’s names into it? There is no question of owning his mistake,” he said.

Hitting out at the BJP-JD(S) combine, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said, “The leader with whom the PM gets photographed by placing his hand on his shoulder. The leader for whom the PM himself campaigned 10 days ago. Praised him on stage. Today, that leader of Karnataka is absconding from the country.”

“Just hearing about his heinous crimes committed is heart-wrenching. This ruined the lives of hundreds of women. Modi ji, will you still remain silent?” she said in a post on ‘X’.

Congress’ media and publicity department head Pawan Khera shared a letter written by BJP leader Devaraj Gowda to the Karnataka BJP on December 8 last year. He said the letter exposed the presence of a pen drive full of “sleaze videos of Prajwal Revanna”.

H D Revanna, the father of Karnataka MP Prajwal Revanna, accused rivals of creating a conspiracy out of “old videos”.

“I think that, given the timing they have done it, these are all pre-planned. Fake videos are there. There are so many such videos. There are no inquiries. Why special inquiry on this?

“We are here, we will face it legally… Some four or five years (old) thing they have got it now and the booking case…I will not react to this issue, as the case has been given to SIT and their investigation should not be hindered,” he told reporters.

When it was pointed out that an FIR has been registered against him too, he said, “There is politics, I do not want to comment. They (Congress) are in government and they will do whatever they want.” He further said, “All these things are not just today, the Deve Gowda family in the last 40 years (has been targeted by) Congress. CoD (now CID), Lokayukta probe, we have been facing for the last 40 years… I do not want to react to anything…let them take action by law,” he said.

Prajwal Revanna left for Germany on Saturday morning after voting in the Lok Sabha election a day earlier.