Political Sex Scandals

In all likelihood, this is the last we’ll see of ND Tiwari, but not his kind of debauchery.

On Boxing Day 2009, Narayan Dutt Tiwari resigned as the Governor of AP (on health grounds) after he was accused of acts of sexual depravity. If the octogenarian politician is guilty, he is indeed a sick man (or a robust one, depending on how you see it). There have been many like him and but we won’t compile a shamelessly long list. Instead, here are four that caught our imagination for various reasons.

The Profumo Affair, 1963: Developed after the then UK Secretary of State for War John Profumo had a brief relationship with a showgirl named Christine Keeler. She was also reputedly the mistress of a known Russian spy. Profumo denied it. The outrage, though, forced him to resign and damaged the reputation of PM Harold Macmillan’s government.

The Pamela Singh (Pamela Bordes) Scandal, 1988-89: Miss India, 1982,  briefly grabbed eyeballs in the UK as the escort of several notable individuals, including arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and the then junior minister Colin Moynihan, who is now ‘Lord Moynihan’ and heads the British Olympic Association. (Later, it emerged that she had a House of Commons pass arranged for her by MPs David Shaw and Henry Bellingham.)

The Lewinsky scandal, 1995-98: Traced its origin to an ‘ambiguously defined’ sexual relationship between US President Bill Clinton and his 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The investigation led to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the US House of Representatives and a subsequent acquittal on all impeachment charges in a 21-day Senate trial.

The Kashmir teenage forced prostitution racket, 2006: It started with two former government ministers who were accused of organising and participating in a prostitution and pornography ring. Then, on 28 July 2009, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah put in his papers over allegations of neglect  made by the opposition People Democratic Party (PDP) over the case. His resignation was rejected.

All this to say that in all likelihood this is the last we’ll see of ND Tiwari, but not his kind of debauchery.

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Avinash Subramaniam