Bengaluru: Minister Priyank Kharge on Wednesday challenged the BJP leaders to make public their conversation with Soujanya’s mother Kusumavati. Soujanya, a 17-year-old student, was allegedly raped and murdered in Dharmasthala in 2012.

The BJP leaders led by state president B Y Vijayendra called on Soujanya’s family during the ‘Dharmasthala Chalo’ rally on Monday. The party organised the march to the temple town in Dakshina Kannada district, charging that the ruling Congress was defaming the Manjunatha Swamy temple by relying on the allegations that multiple bodies of young women and girl students were buried in and around Dharmasthala.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed by the state government to investigate the truth of the allegations, dug up several places in the holy town after a masked man, later identified as C N Chinnaiah, claimed that he had buried hundreds of such bodies.

In a post on ‘X’, Kharge sought to know whether the BJP leaders, who organised the ‘Dharmasthala Chalo’ alleging that there is a conspiracy and a false propaganda going on about Dharmasthala, had the courage to tell the world what Kusumavati had told them.

“Why did the BJP Karnataka unit leaders remain silent without responding to Kusumavati’s statement? Your own party says that she has made money using the name of Soujanya and has built such a big house?” Kharge, who is Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s son, said.

He asked Vijayendra whether justice should be served first for the harassment the Soujanya family was subjected to by the BJP. “Kusumavati complained against the very people on whose behalf the BJP had gone to Dharmasthala. How did the BJP Karnataka leaders feel like while sitting on the dais even after hearing what Kusumavati said? Kharge asked.