Hyderabad: Exactly one month before the simultaneous assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the state, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy was injured in a stone pelting incident at Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party’s rally in Vijayawada Saturday night.
The bleeding cut on his forehead above his left eyebrow harked back to a similar blood-spattered incident in October 2018 ahead of the 2019 elections when Jagan was stabbed with a small knife at the Visakhapatnam airport.
While the Andhra Pradesh Police have initiated a probe and are questioning people and collecting evidence like CCTV footage, a YSRCP delegation led by party general secretary Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy alleged a conspiracy behind the attack in a meeting with state CEO Mukesh Kumar Meena Sunday. According to the party, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo Chandrababu Naidu’s “provocative public speeches” against Jagan are behind the attack.
After the attack, Lokesh Nara, TDP general secretary, tweeted a combination of pictures of a knife and a stone with the hashtag, “KodiKathiDrama2″. Tagging Jagan in the post, he wrote, “Try something new,” implying the stone pelting was a design and that the stone came from Tadepalli palace, i.e., Jagan’s camp office.
On the other hand, Chandrababu Naidu, Nara’s father, condemned the attack and asked for “an impartial and unbiased inquiry” in a tweet.
I strongly condemn the attack on @ysjagan. I request the @ECISVEEP to initiate an impartial and unbiased inquiry into the incident and punish the responsible officials.
— N Chandrababu Naidu (@ncbn) April 13, 2024
Soon after the stone pelting, YSRCP activists and Jagan admirers held protests at various places, including Guntur, where they reportedly slapped posters of Chandrababu Naidu, Pawan Kalyan, and Nara Lokesh with slippers and later burnt them. The protests continued into Sunday.
“The attack is a consequence of Naidu’s envy and jealousy over the tremendous response Jagan and YSRCP’s Memantha Siddham rallies have been receiving from the public,” said Karumuri Nageswara Rao, a YSRCP minister. “The former CM could not digest the welfare-centric popular governance of Jagan, which is why he has been targeting our leader and now this attempt on Jagan’s life,” he added.
Jagan has been on a statewide bus yatra, Memantha Siddham (We are all ready), which entered Vijayawada Saturday.
The stone pelting incident occurred at 8.10 pm when the rally was passing through the Singh Nagar locality. The stone was flung directly at Jagan amid power cuts to avoid mishaps during the rally because of low hanging wires.
“It appears the miscreants took advantage of the dimness. We have examined the spot, adjacent school building and surroundings. Special teams have been formed to nab the culprits soon,” said Vijayawada Police Commissioner Kanthi Rana Tata.
The stone came at Jagan so hard that after hitting him, it flew and hit YSRCP former minister and Vijayawada East MLA Vellampalli Srinivas, who stood beside the chief minister atop the campaign bus, in his eye.
Though Jagan resumed the road show after receiving first aid, he later received treatment at a government hospital where doctors stitched his wound under local anaesthesia.
There was a break in the bus yatra Sunday, for Jagan to get rest as advised by the doctors.
Talking to reporters, Vellampalli described the attack as the TDP-Jana Sena Party alliance “targeting Jagan’s life”. He, jointly with Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas, demanded the ECI act to ensure the CM’s safety.
Calling the attack painful and unfortunate, Jagan’s sister and state Congress chief Y.S. Sharmila said it could be an accident.
“But if not, it needs condemnation from everyone. There is no place for violence in democracy. I am praying for Jagan garu’s speedy recovery,” Sharmila tweeted.
Political observers said the public incident and injury could fetch some sympathy votes for Jagan in the coming elections.
As the YSRCP leaders point fingers at Naidu, a Vijayawada-based political analyst said a thorough probe would reveal the facts while condemning the attack.
“There are some suspicions, but whoever the culprits are, the YSRCP, nevertheless, will use the incident injuring Jagan to garner some sympathy votes,” the analyst said.
PM Narendra Modi, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, and Tamil Nadu CM M.K. Stalin wished a speedy recovery for Jagan in posts on X.
I pray for the speedy recovery and good health of Andhra Pradesh CM @ysjagan Garu.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 13, 2024
What happened in 2018
In 2018, Jagan, the opposition leader then, was stabbed in his left shoulder with a sharp locally-made blade used in traditional rooster fights — especially during Sankranti — in rural Andhra.
The incident occurred 25 October 2018 inside the secured Visakhapatnam airport. The accused, Srinivas Rao, an employee of a food outlet in the airport, claimed to be a Jagan admirer and that it was an accident.
The case, first probed by state police, was later transferred to the National Investigation Agency. The trial in the case moved slowly, and Rao, who was lodged in jail for the attack for over five years, received bail in February this year.
The TDP, then in rule and even later in opposition, depicted the incident involving a ‘kodi-kathi (rooster blade)’ as trivial and alleged the YSRCP orchestrated the incident ahead of polls for sympathy votes.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also read: ‘YSRCP agents’ — why Jagan’s grassroots ‘welfare volunteers’ have come under EC radar