Chandrababu Naidu hits back at Jairam Ramesh over ‘public anger’ claim at Sitharaman event

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday accused senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh of promoting a “politically motivated” narrative after the latter described a commotion during Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s address at a public meeting as a reflection of people’s anger.

The exchange centred on an October 2 event at Madanapalle in Annamayya district, where Sitharaman and Naidu laid the foundation stone for the Rs 1 lakh crore Global Horticulture Hub. A commotion broke out among sections of the gathering while Sitharaman was speaking, prompting Naidu to rise from his seat and appeal for calm.

Ramesh calls it ‘anger’

Ramesh subsequently shared a video of the incident on social media and interpreted the disruption as evidence of public anger.

“The Finance Minister herself is seeing how much anger there is among that public,” Ramesh said in his post. Referring to Naidu’s intervention, the Congress leader added, “The CM had to silence the people.”

The precise reason for the commotion at the gathering was not immediately clear. Differing political interpretations of the episode subsequently emerged, with Ramesh portraying it as public discontent and Naidu rejecting that characterisation.

Naidu rejects claim

Responding to Ramesh, Naidu said the Congress leader’s interpretation “could not be further from reality”. “To mistake people’s enthusiasm for anger only reveals how disconnected you are from the mood of the people of Andhra Pradesh and Bharat alike,” Naidu said.

The Chief Minister maintained that the crowd’s reaction was not directed against Sitharaman or the government but was an expression of enthusiasm surrounding the event. “What you are trying to falsely portray as public anger was, in fact, an overwhelming and enthusiastic response from the people,” he said.

‘Sheer enthusiasm’

Naidu said the gathering became noisy because of the enthusiasm among those attending and that he intervened briefly only to allow the programme to proceed smoothly. He described the episode as one of “sheer enthusiasm” rather than anger and accused Ramesh of seeking to give the incident a political interpretation through social media.

“Politically motivated social media narratives cannot change what people themselves felt and expressed,” Naidu said. Neither Ramesh’s description of the incident as public anger nor Naidu’s characterisation of it as enthusiasm, by itself, establishes what motivated individual members of the crowd.

Rs 1 lakh crore project

The exchange came against the backdrop of the launch of the Global Horticulture Hub, a major initiative aimed at expanding horticulture and related infrastructure across the Rayalaseema region.

The project is estimated to involve an investment of Rs 1 lakh crore and will be implemented in phases. It is intended to expand horticultural cultivation, strengthen irrigation and logistics, improve processing facilities and connect farmers with larger domestic and international markets. The initiative covers 201 clusters across 303 mandals and thousands of villages, with the government seeking to substantially increase both the area under horticulture and overall production.

The Indian School of Agriculture was also launched at the Madanapalle event, with a focus on technology, research, precision farming, digital agriculture and market intelligence.

Political exchange widens

The disagreement between Naidu and Ramesh has now turned a brief disruption at the development programme into a political exchange over how the crowd’s reaction should be interpreted. Ramesh has presented the incident as an indication of discontent, while Naidu has maintained that those attending were enthusiastic about the programme and its proposed benefits. With the immediate cause of the commotion not clearly established, the competing descriptions remain political interpretations of what unfolded during Sitharaman’s speech.