Expelled AIADMK MP says she will not resign from RS

Chennai, Aug 29: Expelled AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP M Sasikala Pushpa, who is facing sexual harassment case filed by her two domestic aides, today said she would not resign from the Upper House.

"There is no question of my resignation from the Rajya Sabha," Sasikala, told reporters here on her arrival from Singapore. Sasikala, who was expelled from AIADMK earlier this month, said she will be appearing before the Madras High Court's Madurai bench to respond to an allegation of having played fraud on the court while filing an anticipatory bail application registered by Thoothukudi police against her and her family members for allegedly ill-treating and sexually abusing two domestic aides.

The court had directed the MP to appear before it today and explain how she could have signed a petition in Madurai on August 17 authorising her lawyer to argue the advance bail plea on behalf of her when the police claimed that she did not enter Tamil Nadu ever since the case was registered early this month.

Sasikala proceeded to Madurai from here in a domestic flight from Chennai Airport. On August 11, the Delhi High Court had asked Tamil Nadu government not to take any coercive action till August 22 against the expelled AIADMK MP, her husband and their son in the case.

The domestic servants, who reportedly worked at Pushpa's house in Tamil Nadu, had filed a police complaint alleging that they were tortured and sexually harassed.

The High Court had also asked her family to approach the appropriate court in Tamil Nadu for relief by then.

The Supreme Court had on August 26 granted protection from the arrest to her for six weeks in the case. She was expelled from the AIADMK after an altercation with DMK MP Tiruchi Siva at the Delhi airport earlier last month. Since then she has alleged that she was being threatened into resigning from her post.

PTI