Mysuru: Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah slapped an aide in full public view when he tried to persuade him to speak to a caller on the mobile phone as he was heading towards his car after speaking to the media on his arrival at the Mysuru airport Wednesday morning.
The aide, Nadanahalli Ravi, a former gram panchayat member, however , claimed he was not upset and told reporters, who witnessed the incident that "Siddaramaiah is like my father. I am not upset that he slapped me. He did it in a lighter vein,” and requested the media not to make too much of it. The call that Mr Ravi tried to persuade Mr Siddaramaiah to take was reportedly from another of his aides, Marigowda. The Congress leader appeared in a hurry and in no mood to be interrupted while making his way out of the airport.
Earlier he told reporters that the Congress party would politically and legally support senior party leader, D K Shivakumar who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate for alleged money laundering and other financial irregularities.
“Mr Shivakumar has been arrested out of political vengeance. There was no need to arrest him as he did not violate the summons and was there for four days. If there was a situation in which he could have destroyed evidence or run away then an arrest may have been warranted. But there was no such reason here. It has been done for political reasons,” he claimed.
Mr Siddaramaiah maintained that both the arrests of Mr Shivakumar and Mr Chidambaram were politically motivated to “finish all Congress leaders.” “ They (the BJP) plan to finish opposition leaders. But it is not possible. If democracy is kept at bay and if they want to bring in dictatorship, we will not let it happen,” he declared.
