BANGALORE: Following the alleged assault against a peon in BBMP by a corporator, the BBMP officers’ and employees’ union staged protest, here on Thursday.
The officers condemned the corporator N R Ramesh from Yediyur terming his action as, “Extreme,” and called him a Goonda.
The officers demanded that Ramesh who is facing the allegations of slapping a peon E Suresh over five times on Wednesday must be thrown out of the council.
Strong testimonies ensued where representatives spoke to the crowd about the incident and stated that nobody should be demeaned and that nobody should abused in anyway.
Mayanna secretary of the union said, “Why should it matter what position he holds? If you think yourself to be better and then behave in this way, you should be thrown out of your position.”
Speaking to TOI, Suresh said that he was insulted. “I feel bad about what has happened. I was told not to let anybody enter the chambers and so I stopped Ramesh from doing so. I do not believe that I should have punished like that and that is why I approached the union. I was slapped once on my right cheek and then twice on my left cheek. I was also pushed around and verbally abused,” said a nervous Suresh who repeated this incident to many reporters and news crews.
“Only anti-social elements and criminals will act like this. They should not be given a position of any responsibilities. I do not want somebody like this in an office representing the citizens,” said Praveen N, a person who works in the private sector who had come to the protest solely to show his support for Suresh.
However, Ramesh dismissed the allegations. “I had gone to BBMP head office to hand over a software to streamline the awarding of the online contracts pertaining to various civic works in BBMP. I spent more than Rs 50,000 on this and had gone to the office of IT Advisor to hand over to the officer, around 9.45 am. The peon there stopped me and did not let me enter. He said he could not recognize me as a corporator as I was not wearing White shirt. I got angry and I did use foul language, but I did not slap him. There has been a conspiracy against me, as I am trying to bring in transparency in BBMP administration,” said Ramesh.
The police must take a look at the CCTV Camera to witness what happened, he said.
