Raking up the alleged sexual escapades of Prajwal Revanna, incumbent MP and Lok Sabha NDA candidate in Karnataka, the Congress party on Monday hit out against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that he has helped Prajwal flee the country.

“Former Prime Minister and JD (S) Chief HD Devegowda’s grandson, Prajwal Revanna, who is the BJP led-NDA alliance candidate of Hassan constituency of Karnataka that went to polls on April 26, has been accused of sexually exploiting several women and a case has been registered against him,” AICC in-charge, Odisha, Dr Ajoy Kumar said here on Monday.

Prajwal is a sitting MP of Hassan Lok Sabha. He has raped and forcefully taken videos of young women who came to him seeking help for jobs. And the Prime Minister has helped him flee the country, Kumar said.

“How can women be safe in this country when you give tickets to sexual predators? How can they not feel enraged or disgusted by such acts of their own people,” he questioned.

Coming down heavily on PM Modi, Dr Kumar said: “The PM’s eerie silence in the brutal cases of rapes and murder of girl victims of Unao, Hathras, Kathua, his silence on the cases of grave sexual assault on a minor by Asamram Bapu and sexual assaults by Ram Rahim, BJP MP Brijbhushan, MLA Sandeep Singh, his silence on the Bilkis Bano rape case speaks volumes of his respect and regard for women and girls of our country.”

Citing the crime against women perpetrated by the high profile JD (S) MP, Dr Kumar pointed out that rising crimes against women in India has been a matter of grave concern.

India has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world, he said.

Crimes against women rose by 15.3 per cent in 2021 from the previous year, according to the latest data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), with 4,28,278 cases registered in 2021 following 3,71,503 cases in 2020. A total of 3,75,058 women (above the age of 18) went missing in India in 2021. These statistics should have sent alarm bells ringing at the Centre, but PM Modi refuses to so much as address crimes against women, he reiterated while briefing reporters here.

Stating that atrocities on women in the country have increased by two-fold, he charged the Prime Minister is approaching the crime on party line.

He regretted that there is no option by the government when party functionaries commit atrocities on women. The government is covering their crime. Raising the Varanasi BHU case, he charged the Prime Minister with maintaining silence on this issue.