While Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy, with whom Surekha shares a frosty relationship, downplayed the incident, describing it as “a storm in a teacup,” sources say the party remains fully seized of the issue and is assessing its political fallout.
Published Oct 17, 2025 | 8:24 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 17, 2025 | 8:24 PM
Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy and Konda Surekha.
Synopsis: The controversy over the late night police visit to Telangana Minister Konda Surekha’s residence has largely cooled, a day after Surekha’s daughter made explosive allegations against Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and other state party leaders. Party and Cabinet sources described the episode as a mismanaged operation and a “storm in a teacup,” but internal debates continue over how best to manage the issue and its fallout.
A day after the Telangana Environment and Forests, and Endowments Minister Konda Surekha had an earful from the All India Congress Committee in-charge for the state, Meenakshi Natarajan, the booming guns seemed to have fallen silent.
Though the conflagration appears to have died down, the embers are still smouldering, with the Congress leadership working overtime to douse the remaining flames.
All hell broke loose on the night of Wednesday, 15 October, when plainclothes policemen turned up at Surekha’s residence in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, reportedly to arrest her former OSD, N Sumanth, following a complaint lodged at a Warangal police station alleging that he had threatened Deccan Cements executives at gunpoint in an extortion attempt.
What really riled the Konda family was the audacity of the police to visit a minister’s residence—and that too, Surekha’s, a seasoned politician and prominent Backward Class (BC) leader—just as the Jubilee Hills bypoll and local body elections are around the corner.
After discussions in party circles and reportedly within the Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, the issue seemed to have been left hanging, unresolved but alive.
Surekha’s daughter Sushmita Patel made fresh allegations against the Chief Minister, his cabinet colleagues and other party leaders on Thursday, expressing outrage over the police “raiding” the BC minister’s residence without any prior notice.
Sushmita, who kept the day tense with her sharp remarks, ended it hinting at more fireworks ahead.
“Revanth Reddy, his advisor Vem Narender, and Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy are after my mother. They are trying to settle scores with her. They hold a grudge against her,” she charged.
She went on to say that there were several occasions when the Chief Minister had shown irritation whenever her mother took people’s representations to him.
“He would get annoyed when she presented him the petitions she received from the public. He used to say, ‘Why are you bringing so many petitions every day?’ But I ask, who else should a minister take people’s appeals to if not the Chief Minister? There were instances when my mother came home in tears after being snubbed by him,” she said.
Sushmita added that when she called Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy, he categorically denied having lodged any complaint at the Warangal police station.
“Then why did the police come to our house? Why should this happen to us in our own government? We were better off when we were in the BRS – at least those were peaceful days,” she remarked.
Admitting indirectly that the entire operation had gone horribly wrong, the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president B Mahesh Kumar Goud said, “The police did not give any notice. No one was kept in the loop. Anyway, the Chief Minister will sort it out. It seems there was some communication gap.”
Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy, with whom Surekha shares a frosty relationship, downplayed the incident after the Cabinet meeting, calling it “a storm in a teacup.”
According to sources, the party is fully seized of the issue and assessing its political fallout.
As Surekha is no stranger to controversy, the leadership is said to be weighing various options before deciding on how best to, as one insider put it, “tame the shrew.”
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
