TDP supporters disrupt show of stand up comedian Sarat Uday IN Bengaluru.
Hyderabad: The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Monday, April 27, said that the disruption of comedian Sarat Uday’s show by its cadre was “unacceptable” and “inconsistent with democratic conduct”. The statement was issued by TDP Andhra Pradesh (AP) chief Palla Srinivas Rao two days after the incident transpired in Bengaluru’s Koramangla.
On April 25, Angry supporters of the TDP disrupted Sarat Uday’s Bengaluru show and verbally abused the Hyderabad-based artist in the middle of his performance over jokes cracked on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu over two years ago. Despite Sarat apologising earlier for it, the miscreants still forced him to issue another apology in front of the audience.
According to UNI, addressing the issue, Palla Srinivas Rao said that objections to any form of expression must be addressed “strictly” through due process. “In a democracy, dissent must operate within the framework of law. Taking matters into one’s own hands is unacceptable,” Srinivasa Rao said, and further warned party workers that such actions also risk sending the wrong signal to society.
However, at the same time, he also said that there is a “pattern” among some stand-up performers to target political figures for visibility. “Comedy is meant to entertain, not provoke discord or undermine social harmony,” Rao was quoted according to UNI. The AP TDP president and MLA reiterated and advised workers to only take up issues only through legal channels.
The TDP is in fact the first one to issue a statement on this, as prior to the incident two other standup comedians faced FIRs in connection with jokes they cracked on AP Deputy Chief Minister and Jana Sena Party (JSP) leader Pawan Kalyan. Comedians Anudeep Katikala and Rafiq Muhammed were booked and arrested earlier by the AP Police for similar jokes.
While Anudeep was picked up by the police from Prayagraj and taken to Kakinada, Rafiq was arrested from his house in Visakhapatnam and taken to Machlipatnam where the case was booked against him. However, Pawan Kalyan has not issued any statement on both of those incidents.
In the incident on Saturday, a man from the audience first arrived and said, “I’m your fan, you do comedy very well. But in one show, you insulted our leader.” Soon, he was joined by two more people, who began to threaten Sarat, following which a group of five or six people also walked in and ganged up on the comedian. Sarat told them that he had already apologised for those jokes, but the TDP supporters demanded a new apology and started to abuse him verbally.
Sarat then apologised again, addressing Naidu, his son and current IT Minister Nara Lokesh. “How dare you joke about Naxalites’ assassination attempt on Chandrababu Naidu?” one of the miscreants told Sarat, while another threatened him, saying, “If you make such a mistake one more time, mark my words.”
They also tried to force him to say “Jai TDP, Jai Lokesh Anna, Jai Chandrababu Naidu,” but Sarat refused, stating that he also joked about the opposition YSR Congress Party as well. They issued him a “final warning,” and then left. When contacted, Sarat told Siasat.com that the issue had already been settled since he had apologised for his jokes on Naidu earlier.
He added that by the time the police arrived, the miscreants had left the venue.
This post was last modified on April 28, 2026 10:05 am