Security personnel deployed at the Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad on Saturday. (PTI)

Hyderabad/New Delhi, Dec. 26: Andhra Pradesh governor Narain Datt Tiwari resigned today on health grounds, a day after a Telugu news channel aired a report alleging a sex scandal at the Raj Bhavan.

This is the first time anyone holding such high office has resigned in this country over an alleged sex scandal.

The Congress, which he had joined in 1963, said in Delhi: “Keeping in view the high standards in public life, he has resigned. We welcome his decision.”

Although the governor’s office cited health reasons for the decision, it was clear the party was not buying it. Raj Bhavan sources too said Tiwari, 86, could not have continued in his post given the serious nature of the allegations.

The scandal erupted after Telugu television channel ABN Andhra Jyothi yesterday aired what it claimed were photographs taken in a sting operation.

It also telecast a purported phone conversation with a woman who said she had helped send women from Delhi and other places to work at Hyderabad’s Raj Bhavan.

The governor’s office had acted swiftly to get a high court gag on the report titled Raj Bhawanlo Rasa Leela.

A source in the state home minister’s office said: “We have got the photos examined in the forensic laboratory to test whether they were doctored or morphed.”

After receiving the findings of the lab examination, chief secretary Ramakanth Reddy sent a report to Delhi on the request of the Union home ministry, sources said.

The channel had shown a few still photographs, the contents of which The Telegraph is not disclosing because the matter is in court.

Congress spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi said in Delhi: “I think he (Tiwari) does not want to hold an office till it is proved whether it (the report) is true or false.”

State Congress leaders whispered that they found the episode too embarrassing to speak on. Congress Working Committee member K. Keshava Rao led the demand for Tiwari’s scalp.

Not known to take quick decisions, the Congress high command acted swiftly to extract his resignation.

Despite insisting that the party had no role in deciding the fate of a governor and that it was for the government to respond, Dwivedi suggested before the resignation that it was coming.

“Have patience. There is a process to be followed. Those who are authorised by the Constitution to deal with such matters are doing their job.”

Dwivedi went to the extent of disowning Tiwari completely. “Anybody who holds a constitutional post ceases to be a member of a political party. Tiwariji hence was not a Congress member.”

Sources said the top leadership was rattled by the images, shown for about half an hour till the gag order took hold, at a time a massive propaganda about the party’s rich legacy was being planned. The party is to unveil a nationwide campaign on December 28, its foundation day, as it enters its 125th year.

A senior leader admitted that a sex scandal was the worst possible embarrassment for the party on the eve of the foundation day programme.

The court’s gag order could not squelch public outrage. Women’s forums staged demonstrations in front of the Raj Bhavan for the second day today.

Holding placards and raising slogans against the governor, activists of various groups tried to march towards the Raj Bhavan but were prevented. Protesters were arrested as they squatted on the busy Khairatabad crossroads. Although Tiwari was already engulfed in a scandal over claims that he had sired a son from an illegitimate affair, he is no ordinary Congressman.

He thrice held the post of the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, became the first chief minister of Uttarakhand and occupied senior positions in Delhi.

When the Congress broke during the P.V. Narasimha Rao regime in 1995, purportedly with the blessings of Sonia Gandhi, the splinter party (Tiwari Congress) was named after him.