An elected MLA in Andhra Pradesh faced casteist slurs on Monday (September 2) when she went to visit a Ganesh Pandal in Anantavaram village in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district.
Vundavalli Sridevi, from YSRCP Party, is an elected MLA from Tadikonda in Andhra Pradesh. She had attended an event on the occasion of the death anniversary of former Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy where the attendants invited her to the Ganesh pandal in the area.
When Sridevi visited the pandal, casteist abuses were hurled at her and she was accused of polluting the deity because she comes from the Madiga community, which belongs to the Scheduled Caste in AP.
According to The News Minute, Kommineni Sivaiah, who belongs to the Chowdhury community, which is considered to be an Upper Caste, asked, "who allowed this Madiga to partake in the pooja, this place will get polluted."
The police FIR stated that Sivaiah was intoxicated when he made the remark and many of his family members also joined in insulting the MLA.
The comments triggered a clash between Sridevi's supporters and Sivaiah's. It is reported that Sivaiah belongs to Telugu Desam Party, YSRCP's rival.
"For the first time I faced caste discrimination, that too in the capital region," Sridevi said while addressing the media on Tuesday. She went on to allege that Chandrababu Naidu, the president of TDP, along with other MLAs in the party are casteist by nature.
The police filed a case against four people, identified as Kommineni Sivaiah, Kommineni Ramakrishna Kommineni Sai, and Kommineni Bujji.
They have been booked under Sections 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 294 (Obscene acts and songs) and 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code along with sections under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
