Viral video shows Karnataka minister assaulting woman

V Somanna. Pic/Official Twitter Handle

Karnataka Housing Minister V Somanna was caught up in controversy for allegedly slapping a woman in a village in Gundlupet here when she went with a plea to resolve her grievance.

The minister has not yet reacted to the incident but the woman 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, who is the district in-charge minister of Chamarajanagar, had gone to Hangla village in Gundlupet and was taking part in a property document distribution ceremony.

Property documents were given to landless people who were occupying government land for residential purposes but had not secured any ownership of it till now.

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During the ceremony, the viral video purportedly showed a woman approaching the minister reportedly pleading him 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 criticised 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.

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