Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Congress workers clashed outside near the house of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president Revanth Reddy’s here on Tuesday. In the ensuing incident, TRS activists also tried to burn Revanth’s effigy, a day after their party working president and state IT minister K. T. Rama Rao (KTR) filing a defamation suit against Reddy.
The clash was a result of TPCC chief Revanth Reddy’s allegations that TRS IT Minister KT Rama Rao was involved in a drugs scandal and linked the same with the Enforcement Directorate’s ongoing probe into psychotropic/psychedelic substances.
KTR called the statements made by Reddy slanderous and constituting defamation and asked for the statements to be revoked. He further responded to Revanth Reddy and said that if Congress chief Rahul Gandhi was willing to undergo a drug test, he would be willing to do the same. He also brought up the “note for vote” from 2017, a case in which Revanth Reddy is facing accusations of bribing an MLA to vote in favor of the Telugu Desam Party (which he was then part of).
Videos from outside Reddy’s residence showed the protestors marching towards Reddy’s residence armed with sticks as police tried to prevent the group from erupting. Congress workers on their end also responded with equal fervor by attacking the TRS workers. An effigy of TPCC chief Revanth Reddy was also burnt and slogans of “Jai Telangana” were raised.
KTR vs Revanth Reddy
This is not the first time the two leaders publicly took a dig at each other. Last week, speaking against the Saidabad rape case Revanth Reddy accused the TRS government leadership of a significant increase in crime rates.
When the Congress leader called TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao the “cheater of Chintamadaka” a month ago, KTR responded with a veiled threat by stating that “in other states, people get jailed for speaking out against the chief minister”.
