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Former Andhra Chief Minister and YSR Congress Party president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has condemned the attacks on Sakshi media offices across the state, calling it a deliberate and orchestrated assault on democracy. Sakshi Media Group is headed by YS Jagan’s wife YS Bharathi Reddy.
Denouncing the arrest of senior journalist and Sakshi TV’anchor Kommineni Srinivasa Rao and attacks on Sakshi offices, Jagan said that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is twisting and misrepresenting words that Kommineni never said, just to falsely implicate him and justify an unlawful arrest.
On June 6, political commentator VVR Krishnamraju appeared on Sakshi TV, the opposition YSR Congress Party’s mouthpiece. In a debate show hosted by Kommineni Srinivasa Rao (KSR), Krishnamraju referred to the state capital Amaravati as the ‘capital of sex workers’.
In a clarification issued after facing backlash, he said that he was referring to the findings of a recently released study of programmatic mapping and population size estimation (PMPSE) conducted by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), which found that Andhra Pradesh had the second highest concentration of female sex workers in India.
“As part of a pre-planned conspiracy, TDP-led mobs have vandalised Sakshi unit offices in several districts under the guise of protecting women's dignity. This is nothing but a political vendetta masked as concern for women,” Jagan said in a post on ‘X’.
KSR was arrested by the police on June 9, Monday, and he was sent to judicial custody by a court in Guntur on Tuesday for the alleged derogatory comments against women of the Amaravati region during a show moderated by him.
Telugu news television channel Sakshi and the Telugu newspaper by the same name are owned by Jagan Mohan Reddy’s family.
Referring to past controversial remarks by Chandrababu Naidu himself and his brother-in-law, actor and TDP MLA Nandamuri Balakrishna, Jagan questioned their moral standing.
“Your brother-in-law (Balakrishna) said that when you see a girl, you should either kiss her or make her pregnant. These are your standards when it comes to respecting women,” Jagan wrote.
The former CM accused Chandrababu of completely failing to provide safety and justice to women and girls since returning to power. He highlighted the case of Tanmayi, an intermediate student from Anantapur who went missing and was later found brutally murdered.
He also pointed to the case in Ramagiri mandal of Sri Sathya Sai district, where a Class 9 girl was sexually assaulted by 14 men for six months.
He also said that the TDP regime has destroyed education, healthcare, agriculture, and public safety. "You gave fake promises like ‘Super Six’ and ‘Super Seven’ to win votes, but once in power, you betrayed every single promise. People now see you as a failed, corrupt, and incompetent Chief Minister."
Jagan concluded by alleging that to escape accountability, Chandrababu is using fake news factories and media manipulation to spread lies and divert attention. “Your diversion politics won’t work forever, Chandrababu garu. People are watching, and they will hold you accountable,” Jagan said.