An aggressive Telugu Desam Party has decided to take the offensive against the Congress government after Monday’s unseemly events in the Assembly over the Obulapuram Mining Company’s alleged illegal mining in Anantapur district, a company owned by Karnataka MLA G Janardhan Reddy.

TDP and the entire Opposition took objection to Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s threatening remarks at TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu. They demanded his apologies and retraction of the remarks.

On Tuesday, the chief minister obliged, but only after 34 TDP members were suspended from the House for disrupting proceedings. He told the House that he had not made any derogatory remarks against Mr Naidu’s mother as was being misrepresented by the TDP.

“But if my remarks hurt Mr Naidu I apologise unconditionally. Whether it is his mother or mine, all mothers are worthy of respect,” he said.

The TDP cadres across the state on Tuesday resorted to violence, burning the effigy of the chief minister in several places including Hyderabad while at others, they attacked government property, targeting buses and deflating tyres. They are protesting against the unparliamentary and threatening language used by the chief minister against TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu during a discussion on the Obulapuram mining company in the Assembly on Monday.

The company is owned by Mr G Janardhan Reddy, Karnataka MLC who is said to be a close friend of Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy. The TDP believes that the mining company is a “benami” holding of the chief minister’s son Jaganmohan Reddy while the Congress points out the mining lease was given by the TDP government in 2002.

The TDP, however, argues that the company is illegally mining a larger area than what it had leased and is demanding that the lease be cancelled.

Angered by the TDP attack in the House, the chief minister said he would expose Mr Naidu so badly that he would regret that he was ever born. What offended him most was the use of colloquial Telugu expression by the chief minister to convey his intention to expose, his reference to Mr Naidu’s birth from his mother’s womb, and the use of the derogatory singular while referring to Mr Naidu instead of the respectful plural.

CM clarification
Such was the angry response to this incident that the chief minister issued a clarification at the end of the day saying his remarks were being distorted by the TDP to gain political mileage. He even provided the exact words he used from the Assembly records.

“I wanted to say that he would have to hang his head in shame after I reply to their accusations. Hence, I said he would regret having been born at all (from his mother’s womb). After I exposed him he would rather prefer not being born at all, I said. What is derogatory in this? Where is the insult to his mother as he and his supporters are saying? I have the highest regard for motherhood and would never insult it, whether it is his mother or anybody’s,” he maintained.

The controversy erupted on Saturday with the TDP leading a march to the mines in Anantapur on Karnataka border to “expose” its illegal mining. The police prevented them, using a large number of personnel and also a mild lathicharge.

20 legislators held
The police arrested about 20 TDP MLAs, MLCs and other senior leaders and held them in Rayadurg police station. When they were released after a few hours the TDP men and women refused to leave as a protest. They spent the night and the next morning too in the police station, brushing their teeth, having bath and eating their food.

Home Minister K Jana Reddy in a statement in the House refuted TDP allegation that the government was “protecting” the illegal mining of Obulapuram Mining Company. He said Section 144 had been imposed around the mines and nobody was allowed to enter the mining area unauthorisedly. The chief minister asked why Mr Naidu did not take Mr Janardhan Reddy’s offer to visit the mines after his return from China on July 26.