The Karnataka JDS-Congress government seems to have a nack of getting involved in endless controversies, as a new video has surfaced in which a senior minister of the JDS-Congress coalition government is seen verbally abusing a lady IPS officer during the last rites of Siddaganga mutt seer Shivakumara Swami in the state.
According to the reports, Tumakuru Superintendent of police Divya Gopinath was supervising the security at the Siddaganga mutt during the last rites of seer Shivakumara Swami. The shocking incident occurred when the lady police officer prevented Minister Sa Ra Mahesh from entering the place as few restrictions were already in place pertaining to the number of people to be present inside.
Sa Ra Mahesh, tourism minister in the Karnataka government, visibly upset after denying entry soon started hurling abuses at IPS officer Divya Gopinath. The minister went on to abuse the lady IPS officer as a “bloody lady” shocking the people present at the spot.
In a video of the incident, IPS officer Divya Gopinath was seen stopping the minister followed by an argument with Mahesh after which he abused the IPS officer reportedly leaving her in tears.
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Speaking to the media, Divya Gopinath said that she was not aware that she was stopping a minister. “These things are quite common while handling the security of big events. There was space constraint. When the minister came, there was some confusion. When we got to know he’s a minister, we let him in. I don’t know how it turned into a huge controversy when nothing as such happened here,” said Gopinath.
However, CM Kumaraswamy stood in the defence of tourism minister asserting that the police officer ‘disrespected the minister’ leading to such incidents. He also said that ‘disrespecting the state tourism minister is equal to disrespecting the CM’.
“I’ll tell you why Sa Ra Mahesh scolded the police officer because if you say there are restrictions and a Minister follows me, how can you stop him from entering but let others in. It’s like you are disrespecting the minister. If my colleague is dishonoured it’s equivalent to dishonouring me. It’s unfortunate that certain things happened. I called the police officers and spoke to them. He resorted to that because it was disrespectful to a minister,” said Kumaraswamy.
In May last year, the Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy had faced severe flak in a similar incident after he had reprimanded the first ever female DGP of the state, Neelamani N Raju after she had made West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee walk a few meters ahead of swearing ceremony in Bengaluru.
The Karnataka JDS-Congress coalition government is facing a massive turmoil after there were reports of defections from the coalition government to the opposition BJP. The Congress party had soon reacted to the reports and had moved 76 of its 80 lawmakers to the resort amid fears of poaching by the BJP. Four of the Congress MLAs did not make it to the Eagleton Resorts and also failed to attend the Congress legislature party meet on Friday. All the four MLAs have been sent a show-cause notice by the Congress party.
During the stay of Congress legislators in the resort, two Congress MLAs from Bellary- Anand Singh and JN Ganesh had heated arguments which had turned violent and Anand Singh was injured after JN Ganesh hit him with a bottle. Anand Singh has now been admitted to a private hospital in Bengaluru for further treatment while accused JN Ganesh is absconding.