An actress’s allegation that senior BJP leader Dushyant Kumar Gautam is the mystery “VIP” linked to the high-profile murder of a receptionist at an Uttarakhand resort has prompted the former Rajya Sabha member to threaten a defamation suit.

The 19-year-old receptionist was killed and thrown into a canal in September 2022, allegedly after refusing to “entertain” a VIP guest at the Vanantara resort near Haridwar.

Pulkit Arya — son of then BJP leader Vinod Arya, who owned the resort — is serving a life term for the murder along with the resort’s manager and assistant manager. Vinod has been suspended from the party.

But the identity of the “VIP” mentioned by one of the victim’s friends to police and the trial court had remained a mystery.

All that changed on Wednesday when Urmila Sanawar, a television actress who claims to have been wronged by a former BJP lawmaker, posted videos that purportedly said several BJP leaders — referred to as “Bhattu”, “Fattu” and “Gattu” — used to exploit women employees at the resort.

Subsequent social media posts by users employing pseudonyms claimed that Gautam — a BJP national general secretary and the party’s Uttarakhand minder — was “Gattu”, the VIP whom the receptionist had been ordered to gratify. The Uttarakhand police on Saturday said it had filed two FIRs and was probing the allegations made in the viral videos of Urmila.

On Friday, several local television channels broadcast a video interview with Urmila — conducted at an undisclosed location — in which she identified the VIP linked to the murder as Gautam.

Gautam, considered a key policy-maker in the RSS-BJP in Uttarakhand, threatened a defamation suit and demanded an inquiry.

“I have written to the chief minister’s secretary (Shailesh Bagauli) to conduct an inquiry into the allegations against me. I’ll leave social and political life if the allegations are found true,” he said in a video message to the media on Friday.

“I want them to prove my involvement in the case or I’ll file a defamation suit against all those who have levelled such a wild allegation.... The person who took my name should be probed. All the so-called evidence should be recovered from her and probed.”

The Congress has been holding dharnas across Uttarakhand since Thursday, demanding the “VIP” be arrested and charged.

Urmila had claimed last week that Suresh Rathore, BJP leader and then MLA from Jwalapur in Haridwar, had married her four years ago after falsely claiming his first wife was dead. This led the BJP to suspend Rathore for alleged bigamy.

Rathore has filed a case of blackmailing against Urmila. “She is not my wife but is blackmailing me.... I have already given her ₹50 lakh,” he told reporters.

Urmila has alleged the BJP might get her arrested or killed and destroy the evidence she claims to have. “I have evidence about which VIP was to visit the resort that night. Rathore told me that it was Gattu,” she purportedly says in one of her videos.

In the television interview, she said she had come to know about Rathore’s first wife soon after their marriage and intended to leave him. But, she said, a senior BJP leader dissuaded her by promising to field her from the Jwalapur seat in 2022. Eventually, it’s Rathore who got the ticket but lost.

“Rathore started fighting with me.... (He alleged) that those who had offered me the seat did so after receiving some ‘gratification’ from me,” Urmila said in the interview.

“So, I started recording our conversations. He would mention the name of Dushyant Kumar Gautam (to frighten her). I used to call Gautam my brother before.

“It was during a fight that he (Rathore) said Gautam had six-seven (women) and an illegitimate child. He said Gattu — Dushyant Kumar Gautam — was the VIP linked to the receptionist’s murder.

“He (Rathore) also named other BJP leaders and talked about someone behind the evidence-tampering and a woman who had a sleaze video of a BJP leader.”

She added: “I’m ready to submit the evidence to the police, but only after preserving it with me....”