Ugly scenes were witnessed at a memorial meeting held to pay tributes to Telangana martyrs in Nalgonda on Sunday when Minister For Sports Komatireddy Venkat Reddy lashed out at Congress MLA Damodar Reddy for daring to interrupt him.
Damodar Reddy had interrupted the minister who was telling police personnel not to lathi-charge Congress activists protesting against the absence of any portrait of former chief minister late YS Rajasekhara Reddy at the martyrs' memorial meet.
The trouble began when Congress activists raised objections to the absence of YSR's photograph on the banners put up at the meet. The activists started to raise slogans against the organizers, and demanded that the banners be pulled down.
As the situation was getting out of hand, the police intervened and tried to bring order. The activists, however, remained adamant, and the slogan-shouting continued. The police then started to cane-charge the protestors in order to disperse them.
Venkat Reddy intervened and told the police personnel to stop the lathi-charge on the activists.
Meanwhile, Damodar Reddy interrupted the minister, and told him to allow the policemen to go ahead and disperse the protestors. According to sources, Damodar Reddy also said that YSR was against the formation of a separate Telangana state, and hence his photograph was not included among the photographs of the Telangana leaders on the banner.
Sources say that the minister, taken aback by the MLA's words, lashed out at the MLA and told him to behave. The minister's angry reaction led to a minor argument between the two.
The argument finally subsided after senior Congress leader and former home minister Jana Reddy pacified them. Jana Reddy told them that Telangana and YSR were not related to each other.
Jana Reddy stated that even after a separate Telangana state was created, people would keep YSR's photographs in their homes out of sheer respect.