Sonal Kellogg, while writing for DailyO, said that the perpetrator was a minister in the UPA I government, but did not name him
New Delhi: Another journalist has joined the #MeToo campaign with her shocking revelation of sexual misconduct by a powerful politician.
Sonal Kellogg, while writing for DailyO, said that the perpetrator was a minister in the UPA I government, but did not name him.
She writes,
“This minister, quite an advocate of women’s rights and empowerment, is highly educated. He studied from St Stephen’s College and did his masters from one of the top universities in England. He is very articulate — but he is also very touchy-feely. I met him infrequently, maybe once a month or so when I was covering his ministry, and I always met him in his office. He would greet me each time with a kiss, which I thought was a Delhi thing — in Gujarat, where I come from, politicians don’t greet women journalists with hugs and kisses. But he would hold my face and try to kiss me on the mouth."
Kellogg goes on to explain her predicament. She says that as she came from a small town and so she thought “hugs and kisses were the norm in Delhi”. She said further that she did not want to draw people's attention while covering his ministry.
She writes that every time this person would try and kiss her, she would turn her face away. However, she could not manage to muster the courage to go and complain, lest she should be tagged as a person with a 'small-town mentality'.
However, things did not end here. Narrating an incident from 2014, she writes, “I would like to relate what happened the last time that I met the minister when I felt he had gone too far — and I finally was able to call him out on it. I was sitting in his office in his MP bungalow in early 2014."
"At that time," she continues, "I was in-between jobs. I was sitting across the table and talking to him. After some time, the minister got up to go to the washroom which was on my left, so he walked right across the table and while passing me by, he stretched his hand and suddenly pressed one of my breasts."
"I was taken aback," she writes, "not quite expecting this, but I did manage to say, ‘Don’t touch me.’ Before entering the washroom, he asked, ‘Why? What is the problem?’ I told him, 'Don’t touch me because I don’t like it’. He went to the washroom and then came back, sat down and resumed the conversation as if nothing had happened."
"After that incident, I never met him. Also, I moved to Ahmedabad from Delhi and never met him at any political or social events,” she concludes.
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