Telugu actor Nagarjuna Akkineni, father of actor Naga Chaitanya, has lodged a complaint against Telangana minister Konda Surekha after she made defamatory and derogatory comments regarding his son’s divorce from actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu.

The Telangana minister sparked controversy on Wednesday after she accused Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader KT Rama Rao of engineering Naga Chaitanya and Samantha’s separation. Surekha claimed that Rao lured Samantha into drug addiction and later blackmailed her.

“It was KT Rama Rao who caused Samantha’s divorce. He was a minister at the time and tapped the phones of actresses to exploit their weaknesses. He turned them into drug addicts. Everyone knows this… it’s no secret,” she alleged.

Nagarjuna, in his complaint filed in Hyderabad’s Nampally district, accused Congress leader Konda Surekha of deliberately spreading false allegations, fully aware of their untruth, with the sole aim of tarnishing his personal, professional, and family reputation.

“The statement was made with malicious intent, designed to convey falsehoods to the public at large, with the purpose of harming the complainant and his family’s reputation for political gain and sensationalism,” the complaint stated. It further emphasised that “these actions constitute a criminal offence.”

“I strongly condemn the comments of the Honorable Minister Mrs. Konda Surekha. Don’t use the lives of movie stars who stay away from politics to criticize your opponents. Please respect other people’s privacy. As a woman in a responsible position, your comments and accusations against our family are completely irrelevant and false. I request you to withdraw your comments immediately,” Nagarjuna said Wednesday in a post on X.

This is the second legal notice that the Congress leader has received regarding her remarks. KT Rama Rao has also issued a defamation notice, accusing her of engaging in “disgusting and nauseating politics,” and calling for action from her party leader, Rahul Gandhi.

Surekha’s comments have sparked significant controversy, as both Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Naga Chaitanya are prominent actors. Naga Chaitanya, a member of the influential Akkineni family in the Telugu film industry, and Samantha have both responded sharply to the politician’s remarks.

Reacting to the Minister’s remarks, Samantha said that her divorce was amicable, with no political conspiracy involved.

“My divorce is a personal matter, and I request that you refrain from speculating about it. Our choice to keep things private doesn’t invite misrepresentation. Could you [Surekha] please keep my name out of political battles? I have always remained non-political and wish to do so,” she said.

“I hope you realise that your words carry significant weight as a minister,” the Family Man 2 actor said.

Her ex-husband, Chaitanya, took to X to share that their divorce was a mutual decision considering the difference in their life goals.

“However, there have been various baseless and completely ridiculous gossip on the matter so far. I have remained silent all this while out of deep respect for my earlier spouse as well as my family. Today, the claim made by Konda Surekha garu is not only false but also absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable. Women deserve to be supported and respected. Taking advantage and exploiting the personal life decisions of celebrities for the sake of media headlines is shameful,” he said in a post on X.

The Congress on Thursday refuted any links with Tushar Goyal, the alleged kingpin of Rs 5,000 crore drug bust in Delhi, saying the BJP is hiding the facts about the accused as Goyal himself has admitted that he was never associated with the Youth Congress after 2022.

Goyal, the primary suspect, was apprehended after the recovery of more than 500 kilograms of cocaine and 40 kilograms of hydroponic marijuana valued at over Rs 5,600 crore in a raid carried out in south Delhi on Wednesday.

In a post on X, the Youth Congress accused the saffron party of misleading the country based on lies and deception, adding “this is a crime under the law and it will soon give a legal answer to it”.

Pointing out the misleading facts being presented by BJP, the Congress fact-checked and said Goyal was removed from the Delhi Pradesh Youth Congress RTI department in October 2022 itself due to anti-party activities.

Continuing its clarification, the grand old party said that after October 17, 2022, the said Tushar Goyal has never been associated with the youth wing in any capacity.

Earlier in the day, the BJP accused the Congress of having links with Goyal and said: “Drugs worth Rs 5,600 crore have been recovered from Delhi. The main accused in this case is Tushar Goyal, who is the chief of the RTI cell of the Indian Youth Congress. This means that it is becoming clear that till now only goods of hatred were visible in Rahul Gandhi’s shop of love, but now drugs are also being found. What is the connection of Congress with the drugs recovered and the accused?”

Furthermore, the Congress said that Goyal himself has admitted that he was never associated with the Youth Congress after 2021-22, which makes it clear that BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi and BJP IT CELL, through a press conference, while hiding the facts, described him as a current office bearer of the Youth Congress, which is clearly a frustrated attempt to tarnish the image of the Indian Youth Congress organisation, against which “we are bound to take legal action”.

“While showing the so-called pictures of the said criminal with our leaders, you people deliberately hid the pictures of Tushar Goyal with BJP leaders which makes it clear that this entire story was fabricated in view of Haryana elections,” the grand old party’s youth wing said.

“And yes, Delhi Police is under your government, give the harshest punishment to the criminal and do not run this fake campaign based on selective and incorrect facts. Because our organization never defends criminals like rapist Brij Bhushan like you people. Be prepared for legal action,” the Youth Congress added.

Ashok Tanwar, senior BJP leader, rejoined the Congress at party leader Rahul Gandhi’s rally in Haryana’s Mahendragarh on Thursday.

“Joined the Indian National Congress family at Mahendragarh rally in the presence of Former Congress president and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi Ji,” Tanwar said after rejoining the grand old party in a post on X.

As Lok Sabha LoP was about to finish his speech, an announcement was made from the stage asking the audience to wait for a few minutes. To everyone’s surprise, Tanwar walked onto the stage, and it was then declared that he had rejoined the congress.

Just an hour before, Tanwar was campaigning for the saffron party candidate ahead of the Haryana Assembly election, which is scheduled for October 5.

Before his departure from the party, Tanwar served as the Haryana Congress chief from 2014 to 2019. In 2021, he joined the Trinamool Congress and then switched to AAP the following year.

However, Tanwar left AAP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls due to his opposition to AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to ally with Congress. After leaving AAP, he joined the BJP and contested in the general election from Sirsa but lost to Congress’s Kumari Selja.

The former Congress chief was addressing an election rally in Mahendragarh with other senior leaders including former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Addressing the rally, Gandhi said: “The fight that is going on is the fight of ideology. There was a big LS election, now there is this Haryana election. On one side, there is a Congress party and on the other, there is BJP and RSS. We say that the country should be run by Constitution, it is for all, and everybody benefits from it. When we think about the country, development, progress, army, bureaucracy, we start from the Constitution. On the other hand, the BJP and the RSS don’t believe in it and want to finish it. They won’t say it in public meetings. They know that there is a deep relation of the country with the Constitution. But whatever they do, they do it to weaken the Constitution.”

Tanwar, an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, started his political journey with Congress’s student wing National Students Union of India. He served as the president of the student organisation and also led the Indian Youth Congress, the youth wing of the Congress, before assuming higher positions in the grand old party.