Minister faces calls for DNA test, ouster
Jharkhand’s agriculture minister Satyanand Jha Batul of the BJP on Tuesday came under sharper pressure to resign from the Cabinet and accept his allegedly “illicit affair and marriage” with a woman who wants a DNA test on him, claiming he fathered her young son.
The Opposition parties and sections within the main ruling allies BJP and JMM intensified their calls for Batul’s ouster from the Arjun Munda-led government after two official documents reportedly surfaced with indications that the woman’s charges might be true.
The birth certificate of Soni Devi’s five-year-old son Vishal shows Batul named as his father and a “marriage agreement” purportedly signed by the minister in 2011 mentions her as his wife, said sources.
“I want my son to get the status of his (Batul’s) legitimate son. I also want the respectable status of his wife. He should undergo a DNA test to confirm paternity,” said Devi, a para-teacher working in the beleaguered minister’s Assembly constituency Jamtara.
She had first gone public with her claims in 2011 and made the same demands, but soon became mysteriously quiet. Her brother recently accused Batul of having kept her in illegal confinement for a year. Devi claims Batul married her in 1996 and fathered her son.
“All these charges are lies and part of a conspiracy hatched by my political opponents,” said Batul, who became an MLA in 2009 and minister in 2010. He resisted the need for a DNA test, saying: “Why should I go for DNA test? Why was she silent for such a long time and spoke only after I became minister? CM Arjun Munda summoned Mr Batul to discuss the controversy on Monday.
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