Hyderabad: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters vandalised the Karimnagar camp office of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA Gangula Kamalakar on Thursday, May 7, smashing vehicle windows with sticks, after BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy challenged Union Minister Bandi Sanjay Kumar to undergo a drug test, a remark that enraged BJP workers who had gathered at the premises, believing Reddy was present there.
Remarks that sparked the row
The confrontation stems from Bandi Sanjay’s demand that BRS working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) undergo a drug test. Kaushik Reddy fired back, challenging Bandi Sanjay to present himself for the test instead, and alleged that the BJP leader had lost his hair due to side effects of consuming drug-laced tobacco products.
Attack on camp office
Enraged by the remarks, BJP supporters stormed Gangula Kamalakar’s camp office, smashing the window glass of vehicles parked on the premises with sticks and causing damage to the property. Police rushed to the spot and dispersed the activists before the situation could escalate further.
Drug use allegations have dominated headlines since a police raid at a Moinabad farmhouse earlier this year, during which a sitting MP and a former BRS MLA, Pilot Rohit Reddy, reportedly tested positive for narcotics, setting off a chain of accusations across party lines.
Harish Rao condemns vandalism
BRS leader and former minister T Harish Rao strongly condemned the attack, questioning how peace and security could prevail in a state where camp offices of elected representatives were being targeted, and called it particularly ironic that such an incident occurred in the constituency of the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs.
He demanded that the state government take immediate, strict action against those involved and warned that if such attacks continued, people would be forced to take to the streets to protect democracy.
