New Delhi: A Madurai-based hairdresser who had received high praise in one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat‘ radio programmes for feeding the poor during the COVID-19 lockdown has now been booked by the state police for cheating and charging an exorbitant interest rate.The city’s Anna Nagar police told the media that C. Mohan was charged with criminal intimidation and sections of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Charging Exorbitant Interest Act after one M. Gengairajan filed a complaint against him. According to a report in The Hindu, the complainant alleged that he had paid Rs 48,000 in total as interest for a loan of Rs 30,000 that he took from Mohan in December 2016. He said he has been paying Rs 3,000 a week for the last four months. However, he could not pay any further instalments because of his financial incapacity.He said that he borrowed Rs 15,000 from one of his family members and paid it to Mohan, along with a cheque of Rs 25,000. Despite being assured that the loan had been settled, the complainant alleged, Mohan did not return him a promissory note and started insisting since this June that he still had to pay interest for his loan. He said that Mohan, and four of his accomplices, also threatened him. Gengairajan further alleged that Mohan used his name as a borrower to loan an amount of Rs 30,000 from a different lender.Mohan has been absconding since the complaint was filed, the police said. The charges against Mohan are likely to come as an embarrassment for the BJP, which is trying to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu. Since the prime minister praised him for his humanitarian efforts, he had shot to limelight in the city. Subsequently, he also joined the saffron party in what was a widely reported event, but later claimed he had not joined the BJP. His 13-year-old daughter was named as a ‘Goodwill Ambassador to the Poor’ for the United Nations Association for Development and Peace (an Indian NGO, not a UN body).Also read: Farm Bills and Labour Law Changes: Modi’s Big Gamble in the Middle of a PandemicA similar incident that caused discomfort to the BJP occurred in Chennai recently. In early September, a history sheeter Suryah, with more than 50 cases against him including six murders, fled from a BJP function in Chennai when the police came to arrest him. Suryah had come to join the party in the presence of state unit president L. Murugan. The police, acting on a tip that the wanted criminal was likely to be at the BJP function, came to arrest him. Upon seeing the police, he fled the scene causing a controversy, and much ignominy for the BJP.The police arrested four of his friends but eventually let them go after signing an undertaking. It also found a sword inside Suryah’s car and took a video recording confirming the presence of Suryah at the BJP function.“I am not aware of the background of every person approaching to join the party,” BJP’s state unit president Murugan told the media when asked about Suryah’s background, before leaving the venue in a hush.The Times of India reported that earlier “a notorious rowdy ‘Kalvettu’ Ravi of north Chennai”, with more than 36 cases including six murders, had also joined the saffron party. The matter had created a lot of flutter, the daily said.