Sullia: The taluk has been living in conditions of serious power shortage and resultant cuts in the recent past.
Annoyed over this, Sai Giridhar Rai, former president of Bellare Merchants’ Association, is said to have called up the state energy minister, D K Shivakumar.
Energy minister Shivakumar and Sai Giridhar Rai
Since he was not available, Rai called him again on Sunday. Perhaps irritated by a call while being in a weekend mood, the minister is said to have spoken rudely to the caller.
Voices were raised and abuses exchanged. Shivakumar cut the call short and called up his officials to trace the caller and file a case against him.
The instructions having come from a high level, the Sullia police went over board to nab him. The same night they went to his house at Kalloni in Bellare.
He locked himself inside his house. The police had to break open the door and also get into the roof. His family members were with him.
Rai was presented before the court on Monday afternoon. His advocates moved his bail petition, which was granted around 5 pm.
Speakng to the media, Rai said that he was tired of contacting officials and elected representatives.
Since there was no improvement in the situation, he called up the minister himself.
Insisting that he contacted the minister on behalf of the entire Sullia taluk’s consumers, he said that as was explaining the hardships faced by the consumers, the minister got angry and began abusing him.
Rai too was further annoyed that the minister did not have the patience to listen to the people’s woes. Not to be outdone, he too replied in the same tone.
Shivakumar cut the call and contacted MESCOM officials in DK and got a complaint registered against Rai.
reported – Shivakumar cut the call and contacted MESCOM officials in DK and got a complaint registered against Rai
Who will take action against the peoples woes ? Not the minister ?
This is why India continues to be a third world country!! Why and when did calling a minister over issue become a crime? Knowing the arrogance of our ministers and elected officials, one can easily guess who first used the abusive language!!! Even if abusive language was used by both parties, how does it qualify to be a crime? In a mature democracy, police wouldn’t break into a house and grab an individual simply because he got frustrated and placed a call to a minister!! In a mature society, media wouldn’t give a pass to this abuse of power by… Read more »
Such things don’t happen in all third-world or fourth-world countries. They happen only in immature democracies like India and other military regimes. We boast of largest democracy in the world, but we should be ashamed of our democracy where elected officials and law enforcement authorities resort to undemocratic means to punish the victims of government lethargy and inefficiency instead of solving their genuine problems. Unless we improve, we will always remain a third-world country and the blame for our sorry state of affairs lies entirely with our functionally illiterate leaders and corrupt officials.