Bhumjaithai party leader Anutin Charnvirakul said today that he has assigned the party’s lawyers to file a defamation suit against Kusumalavati Sirikomut, a former Pheu Thai MP and a reserve senator, in retaliation for her petition to the Election Commission (EC) calling for the dissolution of the Bhumjaithai party.
Interior minister Anutin accused Kusumalavati of lying, claiming that the latter had made several approaches to him in parliament, but he rejected them all.
Commenting on the claim that Anutin had met with several senatorial candidates at the Pullman Hotel in Soi Rangnam in Bangkok’s Phaya Thai district, Anutin said that he goes to the hotel seven days a week and often has appointments with his party members there.
He said he does not normally treat the accuser as credible but, this time, he has to sue her because of her lies about him and his party.
In her petition to the EC today, Kusumalavati claims that she has sufficient evidence, including a money trail and audio footage, to implicate core members of the Bhumjaithai party of involvement in electoral collusion in Senate election last year.
She claims that Anutin had a meeting with the newly-elected senators at the Pullman Hotel and demanded that they sign resignation letters in advance, to ensure that they would heed the instructions of the Bhumjaithai party.
Kusumalavati also claims that she had no personal grudge against the party or its leader, but that she cannot not stand their outrageous conduct.
