Ramdas' freebies incites Congress workers; stage flash protest

Tension prevailed for sometime at Kanakagiri in the city on Sunday, when Congress workers resorted to protest alleging that medical education and district in-charge minister S A Ramdas of BJP is luring voters of the Krishnaraja Assembly constituency with freebies in view of coming assembly elections.

Two workers of Aasare Foundation, headed by the minister as its chairman, who also represents the constituency in the Assembly, were found distributing sarees to women and shawls to men on first main, sixth cross of Besthgeri in Kanakagiri around 11.30 am when the Congress workers got a wind of it. The workers, supporters of ex-MLA M K Somashekar, conglomerated at the road — stopping the auto carrying boxes of sarees and shawls.

They raised slogans against the minister for taking to unethical ways to woo voters. This led to chaos and commotion for a while.

Vidyaranyapuram police who rushed to the spot made a vain bid to pacify the agitators. The police were followed by ACP (Krishnaraja sub-division) A N Prakash Gowda who succeeded in freeing the vehicle from the clutches of the agitators. When the agitators took exception, the police officer said: “it’s too early to think it as a poll tactic”, only to enrage the aggrieved party further.

However, the police succeeded in dispersing the crowd later.