Employees of Irrigation, Revenue, Panchayat Raj and other departments boycotted three official meetings, one of them to be attended by Ministers Jogu Ramanna and A. Indrakaran Reddy on Wednesday as protest against the alleged assault of an Irrigation engineering official by Bellampalli MLA Durgam Chinnaiah.
The protesters sported black badges and denounced the attitude of politicians towards employees at the venue of a review meeting to be chaired jointly by the Ministers at the Zilla Parishad conference hall.
According to those leading the protesters, Nennel mandal Irigation Assistant Executive Engineer M. Devender was slapped by the MLA on Monday night at the latter's residence over the delay in release of a bill for a work under Mission Kakatiya. The protesters accused the MLA and contractor of harassing officials for release of bills without discharging due work.
Raising slogans, the employees reached the ZP conference hall and told ministers in detail of the incident. The ministers tried to pacify the employees but to no avail.
Mr. Ramanna and Mr. Indrakaran Reddy waited for about 30 minutes for the employees and officials to attend the meeting. The latter nevertheless remained firm on their decision to boycott and demanded 'justice'.
