Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Member of Legislative Council (MLC) Nara Lokesh has been banned from attending the Guntur District Review Committee (DRC) meetings in the future. The resolution was passed at a DRC meeting on Saturday. Mangalagiri YSRCP MLA Alla Rama Krishna Reddy moved the resolution while referring to TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu’s son, Nara Lokesh’s comments on Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy. Nara Lokesh had contested the 2019 Assembly elections from Mangalagiri in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.
Speaking at the meeting, Alla Rama Krishna Reddy said, “It’s appalling that Nara Lokesh has referred to the Chief Minister as ‘psycho’ CM. Criticism must be based on a specific subject or point. He (Lokesh) has never attended meetings and has never done anything for the people, but insults the Chief Minister and even the Home Minister, who is a Dalit woman.”
A few days ago, Lokesh had called Jagan Mohan Reddy a ‘psycho’, and his father and former CM Y S Rajasekhara Reddy a ‘factionist’, while addressing the media. He also claimed that the crime rate in the state had risen rapidly since the YSRCP came to power, and that Jagan had turned Andhra Pradesh into a ‘suicide state’, referring to suicides by construction workers allegedly caused by YSRCP policies, and the deaths of TDP workers allegedly due to harassment by YSRCP members. The TDP has alleged that hundreds of their supporters in the Palnadu region of Guntur district have been harassed by the YSRCP in the past few months and forced to leave their villages.
The resolution was backed by other YSRCP MLAs. The meeting was also attended by Home Minister Mekathoti Sucharita, Marketing Minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana Rao and Housing Minister Cherukuvada Ranganatha Raju, who is also the district in-charge minister for Guntur.
TDP leaders have contested the move, with TDP MLC A S Ramakrishna objecting to the ban at the meeting. He reportedly said that banning Lokesh from the DRC for political criticism is against the principles of natural justice.