Lucknow: A local court will on Monday hear the bail of the law student arrested for trying to extort Rs 5 crore from Chinmayanand, the BJP leader she has accused of rape. The former Union minister's own bail petition in the sexual assault case is coming up for hearing that day. The 72-year-old politician on Thursday spent his fourth day in a Lucknow hospital, where doctors are monitoring him for diabetes and urinary problems after having cleared him of any cardiac illness. A Left delegation, including CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat, visited the 23-year-old student in Shahjahanpur jail.

Karat accused the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government of helping rapists. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also lashed at the Yogi Adityanath government over the woman's arrest, comparing the Shahjahanpur episode with the Unnao rape case in which another BJP leader was arrested.