A woman, who had accused former Samajwadi Party (SP) minister Gayatri Prajapati of rape in 2014, went back on her statement in a court in Prayagraj on Tuesday.
The woman, victim of alleged the gang rape, submitted an application in a special court for MP-MLA, in which she said that Prajapati was not the one who raped her, but two of his aids did it.
In 2014, the woman had claimed that Prajapati had called her to Lucknow on the pretext of giving her a job and a house and then raped her, along with his aides. She had said that the accused had made a video of the act and kept blackmailing her. She had even accused Prajapati of raping her minor daughter.
The woman said that only after an intervention from the Supreme Court was that her complaint was registered and the perpetrators were arrested.
The former SP minister, who hails from Amethi, has been in judicial custody since March 2017 after the charges surfaced in various sections in media. He was recently shifted to hospital after he complained of being unwell.
Following the rape allegations, the SP had distanced itself from Prajapati, who then went on to support the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Smriti Irani in the recent Lok Sabha elections in Amethi.
Prajapati is currently also being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a mining-related scam.
Earlier this month, ED officials had questioned Prajapati, who was mining minister in the previous Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the illegal sand mining scam case.