Dehradun: Uttarakhand Finance Minister Premchand Aggarwal, his gunner and some others were caught on camera delivering a flurry of blows on a man following an argument in a Rishikesh locality on Tuesday.
Local residents demonstrated at the Rishikesh Kotwali police station demanding action against the minister who defended his act as seen in the purported video which has surfaced online.
Aggarwal said the man, identified as Surendra Singh Negi, was beaten up after he abused and attacked him, tearing his kurta and his security man's uniform.
"An FIR would be lodged in the case as it is an attack on the system," the minister said.
Senior Congress leader Suryakant Dhasmana demanded Aggarwal's resignation saying "this kind of behaviour does not befit a minister".
"BJP ministers and MLAs seem to be drunk on power. No one means anything to them. Why should a cabinet minister treat an ordinary complainant like this? The chief minister should expel Aggarwal from the cabinet if he does not resign," Dhasmana said.
However, Aggarwal had a different story to tell. He said Negi, who was on a motorcycle, pulled up next to his car. Aggarwal alleged that the windows of the car were down and Negi started abusing him.
When he objected, he started arguing with him and even attacked him tearing his kurta. When his gunner tried to come to his rescue, his uniform was also torn by Negi, alleged Aggarwal, a former speaker of the Uttarakhand Assembly.
He claimed he had lost everything he had in his kurta pockets.
Describing Negi as a "blackmailer masquerading as a social worker," Aggarwal said an FIR would be lodged against him for attacking a minister. The minister, who is an MLA from Rishikesh, told reporters that Negi had called him once about some problem with a road and he had reached there "within five minutes".
"He calls himself a social worker but is a blackmailer. Initially, I used to think he was an active worker," Aggarwal alleged.
The video shows Aggarwal and Negi arguing on the road when the minister slaps him.
When a man comes to Negi's rescue, Aggarwal's gunner slaps him several times. Then Negi tries to hit the gunner from behind with some blunt object picked up from the road. But the gunner turned around just in time to hold him back and all of them including the minister pounced on Negi chasing him across the road and delivering a flurry of blows and kicks on him. —PTI
