Pratibha Dhanorkar says bus video with Shyam Barve was in jest, calls him an elder brother

A video of Congress MP Pratibha Dhanorkar of Chandrapur in Maharashtra and Ramtek MP Shyam Barve is spreading fast on social media. The video was shot inside a bus. In it, Barve is seen lightly slapping Dhanorkar's cheek. Various discussions and speculation began in political circles afterwards.

Dhanorkar has now spoken on the matter herself. She said, "Shyam-bhau is like an elder brother to me. Whatever happened on the bus was entirely in a atmosphere of fun and laughter. I have no complaint of any kind about this." She strongly objected to the spread of misleading reports. She said such talk was an attempt to defame a woman MP without reason.

According to Dhanorkar, all Congress MPs were travelling in one bus from the Constitution Club in Delhi to Ramlila Maidan. MP Varsha Gaikwad was seated right next to her, and Shobhatai Bacchav was in the seat ahead of her. Barve had come that day in new clothes. Some MPs from Jharkhand and Rajasthan began asking him jokingly about marriage.

Dhanorkar said Varsha Gaikwad then teased Barve about his age. Barve replied in a humorous vein, laughing, that his son is 20 to 22 years old, that he himself is not yet 30 and that he still has to get married. According to Dhanorkar, it was amid this fun that Barve lightly touched her cheek. She added that the same kind of jocular behaviour had been shown towards Varsha Gaikwad too.

After the video surfaced, some screenshots also went viral. These showed that a complaint about the incident had been sent from an unidentified email ID named Nagpur Congress Worker. The complaint was addressed to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and K. C. Venugopal. Dhanorkar said the complaint was an attempt to damage the party's image.

Dhanorkar said the identity of the complainant is entirely unknown. According to her, spreading such misleading reports without any official complaint or a definite complainant's name coming forward is wrong. She suspected that someone who wanted to defame Shyam Barve, Varsha Gaikwad or her could be behind this fake complaint.

Dhanorkar said all the MPs live in the same area, eat together and share close, family-like ties. She appealed to the media and the public not to present this small matter in a distorted way. She also asked why such trivial matters were being blown up while serious issues, such as the big protests under way in the country and in Delhi, were being ignored.