Akhila Mariyat, the vice-president of Nadapuram Grama Panchayat belonging to Congress, gave a letter to the DCC president on Wednesday expressing her willingness to resign.
For the last few weeks, the CPM-led opposition had demanded her resignation on “moral grounds” after a person she knew leaked her private videos.
On Saturday, CPM members tried to prevent her from speaking at a panchayat meeting and held a public meeting outside the office.
“I’ll obey my party and remove myself from the position to prove my innocence. The party is my priority,” Mariyat told Onmnorama on Wednesday.
Earlier, she told the panchayat members that this was an attack on her privacy and that she’d continue her legal fight. “I have approached the police and their procedures are on. Now the people who have tried to protect the perpetrator and hamper the police investigation are blaming the victim,” she said on Saturday.
“This can happen to any girl. My colleagues know what I’ve been suffering for the last four years. Protect and stand with the victim, not the perpetrators. There’s no point in support when a life is lost,” she added.
It is understood that Mariyat did not get much support from her party as the issue became a whispering campaign in the area in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election. Sources said there have been rounds of meetings at former Union minister Mullappali Ramachadran’s house, in which Congress leaders demanded her resignation.
A senior regional IUML leader not part of the Panchayat administration told Onmanorama that she would’ve been a “good choice as an Assembly candidate because of her charm, energy and eloquence.” “But in the light of this event, she should better resign,” he told Onmanorama before her resignation. “But we won’t demand it, it’s for the Congress to decide,” he said.
In the 22-member panchayat, the ruling UDF has 11 IUML members and three Congress members. Nadapuram panchayat president V V Muhammed Ali, belonging to IUML, refused to comment, claiming it was a sensitive issue that the Congress would handle.
