“I was celebrating Telangana culture”: This was defence mounted by controversial Hayathnagar Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) corporator, Samma Thirumal Reddy, after a video of him dancing in the middle of a road with his aides went viral.
Thirumal and his aides had recently visited Srisailam. The video, in which the corporator can be seen merrily dancing on a ghat road endangering their lives and disrupting traffic, was shared by one of his own men.
Speaking to TNM, Reddy remains defiant. “There is nothing wrong with the video. There is no evidence that I was drunk. Did you notice any alcohol bottle or a glass in my hand? I was going to a temple. Will anybody go drunk to a holy place?”
Playing the Telangana card, he then says, “What crime took place? We were happily celebrating Telangana culture. Dancing on roads during Dasara and Bonalu is part of our culture.”
It was reported earlier that the corporator was drunk. Lashing out at these stories, he says, “How can they malign me by saying I was drunk? Could they smell the alcohol on me in the video? I will file cases against them.”
He went on to slam the media in general. “What right does the media have to curtail the freedom of a corporator? Don’t I have individual freedom?”
He then blamed the Opposition and the Congress Party for this ‘malicious’ campaign launched against him. “They have altered the video.”
“There was no other place we could dance. It was just the five of us. We spotted a vehicle-free zone and started dancing. We were there for just two minutes … Did it lead to a traffic jam?” he asks.
Thirumal is no stranger to controversy. He was criticised by many for insensitivity while curbing open defecation.
Reddy who is active on social media, would take photos of people who were found defecating and urinating in the open, and share them on his Facebook account to shame them.
In the past, he was also booked by the Vanasthalipuram police for barging into a home and videographing the women present there.