India's ruling Congress party is facing a major embarrassment after one of its senior lawmakers and the deputy chief of the Upper House of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), P. J. Kurien, has been accused of gangraping a 16-year-old girl in the southern state of Kerala in 1996.

Though the Congress is yet to take action against Kurien, the gangrape victim's mother has reportedly written a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking her intervention for an impartial probe in the interest of justice for her daughter.

The victim has alleged that Kurien was one of the some 40 men who had raped her 17 years back while she was in forceful confinement.

However, the deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha, who was earlier acquitted by various courts in the gangrape case, denies any wrongdoing and claims to be a victim of political conspiracy.

Meanwhile, the main opposition Left parties in Congress-ruled Kerala has initiated a campaign demanding a reinvestigation into Kurien's role following the Supreme Court recently quashing the state High Court's acquittal of all the accused.

Gandhi has been insisting on stricter laws to punish rapists in the wake of the horrific gangrape of a 23-year-old medical student in the national capital in December last year.

The victim died of her injuries at a Singapore hospital earlier last month. All the accused are currently on trial, with five of them facing rape and murder charges which carry a maximum punishment of death penalty. The sixth accused, being below 18 years of age, is a minor and will be tried as per juvenile law.

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