Chhattisgarh Congress MLA caught on camera slapping bank employees
Agitated employees of cooperative banks in the Surguja division have announced a two-day strike from Thursday if no action is taken against Brihaspat Singh, the MLA from Ramanujganj
A ruling Congress MLA in Chhattisgarh was last week caught on camera publicly slapping two employees of a district cooperative bank in Balrampur-Ramanujganj district. The purported video went viral on social media on Tuesday.
Agitated employees of cooperative banks in the Surguja division have announced a two-day strike from Thursday if no action is taken against Brihaspat Singh, the MLA from Ramanujganj. The incident reportedly took place on Thursday.
Singh alleged that bank employees were embezzling funds meant for farmers which the government disburses for paddy procurement.
A day after the incident, employees of cooperative banks handed over a complaint to Inspector General of Police (Surguja range) Ram Gopal Garg and demanded a case against the MLA.
According to the complaint, Singh allegedly slapped and abused clerk Rajesh Pal and peon Arvind Singh outside the bank in front of hundreds of farmers during office hours, which was corroborated by the CCTV footage of the bank where the MLA can be seen thrashing two persons.
“Cooperative banks will be unable to discharge their duties in such a situation. If action is not taken against the MLA and the government does not guarantee the safety of the employees, then they will observe leave in groups for two days on April 5 and April 6,” the complaint stated.
Reacting to the viral video, the MLA said, “The bank employees were harassing everyone present there... I visited the bank when the farmers called me and suddenly a bank employee started misbehaving with me. I got angry and I slapped two of them. They also misbehaved with a 70-year-old man when he had gone there to withdraw money. I want to tell everyone that the harassment of bank employees with farmers will not be tolerated.”
The Congress leader further said he called senior administrative and police officials after the incident. “The farmers are complaining to police and authorities about what the bank employees have done to their money. I will fight for them.”
