BJP demands apology from Revanth Reddy, Congress, and INDIA bloc over ‘Bihari DNA’ remark

Telangana Congress chief Revanth Reddy greets during his oath-taking ceremony as the Chief Minister of the State, at the Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad on Thursday. | Photo Credit: ANI

On a day when the new Chief Minister of Telangana, A. Revanth Reddy took the oath of office in Hyderabad, the Bharatiya Janata Party criticised his “Bihari DNA” remark, and demanded that the Congress and Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc condemn the remark and ask Mr. Reddy to apologise.

Mr. Reddy had, during a programme hosted by a media group, reportedly said that K. Chandrashekar Rao, the first Chief Minister of Telangana, had “Bihari genes”, indicating that he was a better choice for the State than KCR.

“My DNA is Telangana. KCR’s DNA is Bihar. He belongs to Bihar. KCR’s caste is Kurmi. They migrated from Bihar to Vijayanagaram and from there to Telangana. Telangana DNA is better than Bihar DNA,” Mr. Reddy is reported to have said.

Former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, addressing a press conference at the BJP’s headquarters in New Delhi, termed Mr. Reddy’s remarks as “very shameful, divisive and arrogant”.

He further said, that the “big question” was the silence of the INDIA bloc members. “Why has Nitish Kumar not said anything [on Reddy’s remarks] so far? What are the Congress members in Bihar doing?” Mr. Prasad said.

“Your Chief Minister calls one region’s DNA weak and makes very shameful casteist remarks against his own party leaders [who are in Bihar], this is very unfortunate. We condemn it. The Congress party should also condemn it if they have even a little understanding of the significance of unity in the country,” he said.