Karnataka Housing Minister V Somanna stirred a controversy after a video showed him slapping a woman when she went with a plea to resolve her grievance. The incident happened at a village in Gundlupet in Chamarajanagar district on Saturday, news agency PTI reported.
Although the minister, who is the district in-charge minister of Chamarajanagar, has not yet reacted, the woman said that the minister was only consoling her after she tried to prostrate before him.
The minister had gone to Hangla village and was participating at a property document distribution ceremony.
During the ceremony, the video, that has now gone viral, purportedly showed that the woman was approaching Somanna with her plea to allot a land. He got angry after the crowd shoved him, and slapped the woman.
However, the minister’s office shared a video in which the woman said she only pleaded for a plot be granted to her as she was 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, as quoted by PTI.
Meanwhile, Congress general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh criticised the BJP 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.