Uttarakhand women and child development minister Rekha Arya’s husband has accused her of amassing ₹210 crore in ill-gotten wealth and filing a
police complaint against him based on an AI-generated audio clip.
Girdhari Lal Sahu, a BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly, in a video uploaded on social media on Saturday, said: “She has been involved in financial corruption in her department for the last 10 years. I have spoken out against this many times.”
Sahu said he had shaped Arya’s political career for the last 17 years.
“She had two pairs of suits when we came to know each other. I campaigned for her. But when I asked her not to go to Uttarakhand (to contest the election) this time, she filed a fake police case against me,” he said.
“She also implicated her former manager in a false case when she came to know about her illegal work,” Sahu said, demanding that chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami initiate a probe.
He also claimed that an audio recording, which Arya shared on Thursday evening, was “fake, AI-generated and fabricated”, and dismissed the charges against him as “baseless”.
Uttarakhand is due for Assembly elections in March 2027.
Arya, who was admitted to a hospital in Dehradun on Friday, had on Thursday filed an FIR against Sahu and released a video on social media, accusing him of physical assault, harassment, hurling casteist slurs, and issuing death threats. Earlier, she had filed a case of domestic violence and death threat against her husband.
The FIR was registered at the Cantt police station in Dehradun under the relevant sections of law, including three sections of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
In a statement issued from the hospital after Sahu’s video message surfaced on social media, Arya said he had initially kept her in the dark about being married.
“He cheated me. He was married when we met. He didn’t reveal this to me. Whatever I am doing is meant for the safety of women and children,” she said.
Arya, a BJP MLA from Someshwar Assembly seat in Almorah district, has two sons and a daughter from Girdhari.
Jaya Baloni, superintendent of police, Dehradun rural, said a nine-member special investigation team had been constituted to probe the matter.
“We are collecting the details. We will start the probe after the minister is released from the hospital and complete it soon. The police have also sent the video of the minister’s husband for forensic examination,” Baloni said.
Girdhari has been absconding ever since the fresh FIR was registered against him. Murder and land-grabbing cases are pending against him in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
Uttarakhand Congress president Ganesh Godiyal said: “We don’t want to play politics on this issue, but I am deeply disturbed to hear about Arya’s plight. Imagine the condition of a common woman if a cabinet minister is suffering under the current dispensation?”
Godiyal also demanded that Dhami secure Arya’s resignation in light of the grave allegations brought by her husband and initiate an impartial investigation.