Sullia : Local merchants’ association has Condemned the action of Power Minister D.K. Shivakumar in Bellare merchant Sai Gangadhar Rai, and they alleged that, it is unbecoming of a Minister to take such an action on a person who tried to highlight the grim power situation in Sullia.

Rajesh Shanbhag, president of Bellare Merchants and Industrialists Association, said here on Wednesday that the residents of Sullia taluk were reeling under power outages. Despite airing their concerns for the past several weeks, the Mangalore Electricity Supply Company officials had not taken any action.

Mr. Shanbhag said that the merchants raised the issue during the customers’ grievance redressal meet organised at the Mescom office in Bellare a few days ago. The Mescom officials, who had promised action, had not taken any steps to resolve the problem.

He said that they were pained over the action of Mr. Shivakumar in getting Mr. Rai arrested. “We do not know how he [Mr. Rai] spoke to the Minister. But the action of Minister in getting Mr. Rai arrested late on Sunday night is highly condemnable.” Mr. Shanbhag said that Mr. Rai had been active in raising concerns of the people on poor power supply.

Earlier, Bharatiya Janata Party activists staged a protest in Bellare condemning the action against Mr. Rai. They also demanded that a separate sub-division be set up to provide supply power to the taluk. Addressing the protesters, BJP Bellare unit president Harish Kanjipili blamed the Congress government for the erratic power supply. Mr. Kanjipili alleged that the Congress was not attempting to solve the problem as a majority of voters in the taluk had voted against the party. Mr. Kanjipili said that they would intensify their protest if the government did not set up a separate sub-division in Sullia within a month.

Zilla Panchayat member S.N. Manmath said that the government was filing criminal cases and bulldozing those raising their voice against power outages.