Andhra Pradesh state assembly on Thursday witnessed a high drama when Hindupur MLA and senior Tollywood actor Nandamuri Balakrishna launched a fiery attack, not just on YSR Congress party chief and former chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, but also on his own alliance ministers.
Speaking in his trademark aggressive style, Balakrishna referred to Jagan as a “psycho” and accused him of humiliating film industry stalwarts during his tenure.
He was reacting to an earlier speech made by BJP MLA Kamineni Srinivas, who recalled the controversial meeting where top stars including Chiranjeevi, Prabhas, Mahesh Babu, and director Rajamouli with Jagan to discuss industry issues.
Balakrishna lashed out at claims made by Kamineni Srinivas that Chiranjeevi had “forced” Jagan to meet the delegation.
Taking strong objection to minister Kamineni’s remarks, Balakrishna thundered that the statements were “lies” and completely baseless.
“Know the facts before you speak,” he shot back angrily, dismissing the narrative that Chiranjeevi’s intervention alone made the meeting possible.
He rejected the talk that the industry meeting happened only because of Chiranjeevi’s pressure was a distortion of facts.
He stressed that though he himself had been invited, he deliberately chose not to meet “that psycho.”
Balakrishna didn’t stop at targeting Jagan or the YSRCP. In a rare move, he also turned his ire against his own coalition partner, Jana Sena minister Kandula Durgesh.
Expressing outrage over his name being placed ninth in the Film Development Corporation’s committee list, Balakrishna ridiculed the minister for the lapse and said he had confronted him directly.
“Who wrote such nonsense?” he asked, recalling how he had already pulled up Durgesh over the issue.
Balakrishna’s fiery outburst — aimed at both the opposition and his own government colleagues — has quickly become a hot political talking point in Andhra Pradesh.
Even as he ended his tirade by seeking pardon from the Speaker if his words had crossed a line, the aggressive tone of his remarks ensured that the assembly reverberated with his presence.