Watch: Rajasthan Minister fumes at District Collector over phone use, asks him to leave the stage

Rajasthan Minister Ramesh Meena on November 21 publicly scolded Bikaner district Collector at an event and asked him to leave the stage, saying the officer was preoccupied with his phone and was not paying heed to the issues he was raising.

In a video shared by the news agency ANI, the minister can be seen chastising the collector for using the mobile phone while he was addressing the gathering from the stage. He told the collector, who appeared busy with his mobile phone, to leave the stage.

Ramesh Meena, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister, was addressing a gathering at a programme at Ravindra Rangmanch. Collector Bhagwati Prasad Kalal among other dignitaries was sitting on the stage.

In the video, Meena can be heard asking the collector, – ‘Why are you not listening? Are bureaucrats so dominant in the state that they are not listening?’

The Minister then asked Kalal to leave the stage, at which the Collector stood from the sofa without saying anything and left the stage.

Watch here.

Following the incident, a delegation of the Rajasthan IAS officers' association met chief secretary Usha Sharma and handed over a representation against the minister’s inappropriate behaviour with an IAS officer and demanded appropriate action.

Minister Ramesh Meena told news agency ANI that he was discussing important issues with the Collector but,  he was preoccupied with his phone, so he told him to leave the stage.

“The event was underway, & I was having a conversation with the Collector regarding it. Maybe he had some work or was getting urgent phone calls. He was speaking on the phone & chatting away. So, I told him to go out if he had to speak on the phone,” Meena said, as quoted by ANI.

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The event was held in Bikaner yesterday with the goal of having a fruitful interaction with women and reviewing the department's implementation of schemes.