Chandigarh: A video clip, purportedly showing Hisar BJP leader Sonali Phogat beating a district‘s agricultural market committee official with a slipper after accusing him of having made some indecent remarks against her, has gone viral on social media.
In the video footage, the 40-year-old ruling party leader from Adampur in Hisar, also a Tik-Tok star, is seen first slapping marketing committee secretary Sultan Singh and then hitting him with her slipper in full public view.
Singh later lodged a complaint with police against Phogat, denying making any indecent remarks against her and accused her of beating him up under ‘misconception’ that he had opposed her during the Assembly elections.
Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala shared the controversial video on his Twitter handle. “Exploits of the leaders of the Khattar government. The BJP leader from Adampur in Hisar is beating the Market Committee official like animals. Is doing government job a crime? Will (Chief Minister) Khattar take action? Will the media still remain silent?,” tweeted Surjewala.
Phogat told mediapersons in Hisar she had gone to meet the market committee officials on Friday to air some grievance of farmers.
She said when an official was showing her a place in the Balsamand area of Hisar district where a shed for farmers was to come up, he began passing ‘indecent and derogatory remarks against her’.
She claimed the official also made some comments against another woman official of the market committee and a woman minister of Haryana.
“When he was showing me the place where the shed was to come up, he first made a mention of the community to which I belong. He also talked about another woman official and a woman minister who also come from the same community as myself,” she said, adding the official then made “indecent and derogatory remarks” against her.
Market committee secretary Sultan Singh, however, rubbished the charges levelled against him by Phogat. He said on her asking he went to Balsamand, where some of her supporters too arrived in three or four cars.
“I explained in detail some concerns she had about crop procurement process. When she was asking me about the shed, she took me aside and she asked me why had I opposed her in the assembly polls which she fought from Adampur. When I tried to clarify that she was under some misconception, she asked her supporters to shoot her video. And then she slapped me and began hitting me with her slipper. I did not make any indecent or any objectionable remarks against her or anyone else,” said Sultan Singh.
“I kept pleading before her with folded hands but she kept beating and threatening me. As I feared for my life I went to police station and lodged a complaint,” Singh told reporters in Hisar.
Asked why she decided to take law into her hands, Phogat said, “What right he (official) has to talk to a woman like this? Had he not been taught a lesson, he would not have allowed any woman to come up.”
In the video which went viral, Phogat is seen slapping the official and later beating him with her slipper even as he is seen saying he did not said anything wrong.
“Do I work to listen to such kind of abuses from people like you?. Don’t I have a right to dignified life? He used wrong language and talked to me in ill-mannered way. Write a report against him,” Phogat is seen telling other officials and some of her supporters present at the site.
Hisar’s Superintendent of Police Ganga Ram Punia told reporters that police have received a written complaint from the market committee official in which he has alleged that he was beaten by Phogat, who also obstructed an official from performing his duty.
“Whatever action is required to be taken as per law, we will take,” the SP said.
Phogat notably had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Assembly Polls from Adampur in Hisar district, a seat which was retained by senior Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi.
Days before the Assembly polls in October, Phogat had courted controversy when she had asked a group of people if they were from Pakistan that they did not chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ at her rally in the constituency.