Women protest against AP gov

Hyderabad: Women's groups staged protests near the Raj Bhavan on Saturday demanding that Andhra Pradesh Governor N D Tiwari resign over his alleged involvement in a "sex scandal", an allegation he has denied and termed "malicious".

Holding placards and raising slogans against the governor, activists of various groups tried to march towards Raj Bhavan, the official residence of the governor, but were prevented by the police.

Protesters were arrested as they squatted on the busy Khairatabad crossroads.

"Tiwari has brought shame to the sacred office of the governor. He should immediately resign or the Centre should remove him," said President of the Progressive Organisation of Women, V Sandhya.

The groups also staged protests on Friday after ABN news channel owned by Telugu daily Andhra Jyothi exposed the alleged scandal. The channel showed explicit clippings of an elderly man purported to be 86-year-old Tiwari with three young women in bed.

On a petition by the governor's officer on special duty Aryandra Sharma, the state high court on Friday ordered the channel to stop telecasting the story and adjourned hearing in the case to December 30.

The channel quoted Radhika, a woman from Uttarakhand, as saying that she sent the young women to Raj Bhavan on Tiwari's request through his aide.

She claimed that she was exposing the governor as he failed to keep his word to provide her an iron ore mining licence.

The governor's office, however, issued a statement on Friday evening terming the story as "malicious". It alleged that the tapes were fabricated.

The 'sex scandal' rocked the state at a time when it is already embroiled in violent agitation over separate statehood to Telangana.

Leader of opposition N Chandrababu Naidu has demanded the sacking of the governor. Senior leader of Congress party K Keshava Rao too has supported the demand.

Controversies are not new to the octogenarian Tiwari, who has been the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

He was recently in the news when 29-year-old Rohit Shekhar moved the Delhi High Court claiming that he was Tiwari's son. The court, however, refused to pass any orders on technical grounds.