Putting end to row over Konda Surekha's comments: TPCC chief to film industry

Hyderabad, Oct 3 : Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president Mahesh Kumar Goud said on Thursday that State Forest and Environment Minister Konda Surekha has unconditionally retracted her comments on actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu's divorce on the party's direction and made it clear that they are putting an end to the issue here.

He said the minister had made those comments as she was anguished over Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao trolling her.

The TPCC president, however, said the matter should end here and no one should make any objectionable comments.

Goud said in a statement that the minister's comments hurt the feelings of film actors. "On the direction of the party she unconditionally withdrew her comments," Goud said and told the film personalities that they were ending the row.

He referred to the minister's tweet about conditionally withdrawing her remarks. The Congress leader said Konda Surekha not only admired how Samantha fought to come up in life, but said this was an ideal for her.

The TPCC chief said on both sides women were sufferers.

He slammed KTR for not showing respect to a woman minister by trolling over garlanding by a party leader and releasing an old audio clip of a telephonic conversation.

He was referring to the online abuse the minister faced following an incident involving BJP leader and Medak MP M. Raghunandan Rao.

Raghunandan Rao had placed a garland of handwoven cotton around Surekha's neck in a recent programme. This triggered a series of derogatory posts on social media.

Blaming KTR for the derogatory posts, the minister alleged that he was responsible for the divorce of actor couple Samantha and Naga Chaitanya.

This drew angry reactions from both the actors, their family members and several Tollywood personalities.

KTR also served a legal notice to the minister, asking her to retract her comments and apologise or face legal action.

Talking to media persons on Thursday, Konda Surekha said while she withdrew the comments relating to Samantha, she stood by what she said about KTR.

"There is no question of retracting what I said about KTR. He should unconditionally apologise. Instead of apologising, he is asking me to apologise," she said.