KOPPAL: A woman gram panchayat member from Koppal village hit a woman panchayat development officer (PDO) with her footwear during a meeting in Yelburga taluk’s Hiremyageri village gram panchayat. The trigger was the PDO giving house ownership documents to a villager, allegedly without taking a bribe.
GP member Shantamma Bandiwaddar, who walked into the meeting with her son, abused and attacked PDO Ratnamma Gundannavar, and this was captured by CCTV. The footage is now viral. A case was registered at Yelburga police station.
A meeting was convened by PDO Ratnamma to discuss the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and a list of eligible villagers for the housing scheme, at the panchayat office. When the discussion was on, Shantamma and her son suddenly barged in and started abusing the PDO. She then pulled out her footwear and hit Ratnamma.
The GP member and her son were angry with the officer for handing over house documents to a resident of Hiremyageri, without taking a bribe. Shantamma and Ratnamma had previously quarrelled over this, and last year, other GP members had also warned the PDO not to hand over the documents.
The PDO had waited and when the residents had repeatedly asked for their papers, she handed over the documents as per legal procedure. Shantamma got angry over this and asked the PDO why she had not checked with her before giving the documents.
Ratnamma filed a complaint at Yelburga police station, in which she said, “GP member Shantamma Basappa Bandiwaddar and her son Bhimesh Basappa Bandiwaddar attacked and hit an official on duty. She hit me with her chappal and tried to press my neck and kill me. They attacked another staffer Andappa and threatened to kill him, and stopped him from doing his duty too.”