Team News Riveting
Bengaluru, October 23
Karnataka Housing Minister V Somanna kicked off a row over allegedly slapping a woman who came to meet with the leader to resolve her grievance.
The incident took place at Gundlupet in the Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka. The minister has not yet reacted to the incident. The victim woman however defended the minister and said Somanna was only consoling her after she tried to prostrate before him with a plea to allot her a government plot.
According to the information received, Somanna had gone to Hangla village in Gundlupet for an official programme. He is the district in-charge minister of Chamarajanagar.
A viral video of the programme purportedly showed a woman approaching the minister with a plea to allot a plot. The minister turned angry after he was shoved due to the unruly crowd and slapped the woman.
However, the minister’s office shared a video in which the woman said she only pleaded a plot be granted to her as she was too poor.
“I bowed at his feet with the plea and the minister lifted me consoling me that he would help me but it was publicised that he beat me up,” the woman accompanied by her children said in the video.
Congress general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh criticized the minister for his purported conduct. “What a difference from the way @RahulGandhi began the Karnataka leg of #BharatJodoYatra from the very same Gundlupet on 30th September! This shameless man should be sacked immediately!” Ramesh tweeted. The Congress MP was referring to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which entered Karnataka from Gundlupet last month, where the incident occurred on Saturday.
