Oct 23, 2022, 2:45 PM IST
Karnataka Housing Minister V Somanna on Sunday found himself facing backlash over a video that showed him slapping a woman in a village in Gundlupet in the Chamarajanagar district when she approached him with a plea to solve her grievance.
According to reports, Somanna -- the district in-charge minister of Chamarajanagar -- had gone to Gundlupet's Hangla village -- to take part in a property document distribution ceremony. The documents were given to landless people who had been occupying government land for residential purposes without securing any ownership.
The viral video shows a woman approaching the minister, reportedly pleading to him to allot a plot. The minister, apparently enraged by the pushing and shoving around him, slapped the woman as she approached him.
However, the minister's office shared a video in which the woman claimed that she was pleading for a plot to be granted to her as she was too poor. She is heard saying that the minister's action was being presented in the wrong light and that he, in fact, consoled her when she bowed at his feet with her plea.
Opposition Congress slammed the minister's action. Party general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh took to Twitter to say, '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!'
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