It may be recalled that a grave political uproar spread in the state following TDP MLA and popular actor Nandamuri Balakrishna comments in the Legislative Assembly, responding to BJP MLA and former minister Dr Kamineni Srinivas accusations that former chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy insulted film personalities, particularly Chiranjeevi.
Particularly after Chiranjeevi condemned Balakrishna’s comments asserting that he was received well and respected by the then Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy, even Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu also expressed his displeasure over Dr Srinivas and Balakrishna comments in the assembly, terming them as `unwarranted and avoidable’.
Sensing the political heat generated by his comments, Dr Srinivas on Saturday informed the Speaker that he is withdrawing his comments and urged him to delete those comments from the records. But, YSRCP MLAs, who are angry about their comments, made it clear that mere withdrawal of comments will resolve the issue. They have
demanded that MLA Kamineni Srinivas, who criticized former Chief MinisterJagan in the Assembly, immediately apologize.
To this end, party MLAs Tatiparthi Chandrasekhar, Boosine Virupakshi, and Boochepalli Sivaprasad Reddy jointly issued a statement. They said that MLA Kamineni Srinivas made inappropriate comments about the former CM Jagan and it is not right to demand that those comments be removed from the records now.
They said that Kamineni Srinivas raised the issue out of context and criticized Jagan, who was not in the House at that time, and for that, they demanded an immediate public apology. YSRCP MLAs Chandrasekhar, Virupakshi, and Sivaprasad Reddy objected that it has become a habit for the coalition MLAs to speak as they please and change their words when there is a commotion over them.
In fact, they claimed that when the film personalities met him, the then CM Jagan welcomed them very warmly and spoke to them with great respect, and he did not show any negligence towards them or insult them. They recalled that Chiranjeevi had revealed the same thing in the past and even later.
However, they lamented that they were deliberately accusing Jagan and spreading misinformation. They made it clear that it was unreasonable for MLA Kamineni Srinivas, who had accused Jagan with malicious intent, to now innocently ask for his comments to be removed from the records, and instead, he should immediately issue a public apology.