Bengaluru: In another incident involving Mr Kumar, a close aide of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in Mysuru, a woman who had come to the Janata Darshan to seek help for the funeral rituals of her daughter, was allegedly humiliated on Sunday morning.
The incident reportedly happened during the Darshan at the Chief Minister’s residence in Sharadadevi Nagar. Sources said that Srimathi, a resident of Vidyaranyapuram here, wanted the Chief Minister to help her perform the 13th day ceremony rituals of her elder daughter Vidhya (28), who had passed away on July 17.
Speaking to mediapersons, Ms Srimathi said, “When we met the Chief Minister Saturday evening and sought Rs 5,000 for the ceremony, he asked us to meet him on Sunday morning. When we arrived for the Janata Darshan on Sunday morning, the Chief Minister’s close aide, Mr Kumar humiliated us saying we were lying that our daughter was dead, in order to extract money. Even though we pleaded with him, he mocked us asking if we were not ashamed to beg and handed us Rs 2,000 while not allowing us to meet the CM, who saw what was happening but ignored us and moved off,” she alleged.
She said that her husband K.V. Manjunath served as head constable in the Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) and had taken VRS. He passed away three years ago.
“I live on the pension of my husband. We had two daughters, the elder daughter Vidhya was married to an engineer. When Vidhya complained of low BP, we admitted her to KR Hospital for treatment. She was neglected at KR Hospital, so we brought her home last Sunday and she died the same day. We are Brahmins and need to do the final rituals for which we need a minimum '9,000. So we had approached the Chief Minister for help,” she said.
She admitted that she had approached the Chief Minister thrice before, once when her husband’s pension was delayed and later when she was unwell. The Chief Minister through Mr Kumar had helped her with money for her younger daughter’s wedding.
“We are poor but we have self respect too. We had requested the Chief Minister to help our family by getting a job for my younger daughter. If that had happened, we would not have faced this humiliation,” Ms Srimathi added.
