The murder of an Intermediate second year student Bharat Yadav on Sunday night has assumed political overtones, with the victim and the accused reportedly belonging to rival political outfits TDP and YSR Congress Party respectively.
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As the incident happened in the run-up to the byelection to Tirupati parliamentary constituency, it surcharged the city’s political atmosphere.
Bharat Yadav was all set to join his undergraduate programme, when the murder shattered his family’s hopes. Though the case details are unclear, the boy was reportedly roughed up by youth belonging to the same Lakshmipuram locality for refusing to provide the contact details of a friend. When the boy took his relatives and accosted the accused, the latter reportedly stabbed him.
The victim was a distant nephew of TUDA’s former chairman G. Narasimha Yadav, who incidentally is the TDP’s in-charge for Tirupati Lok Sabha constituency. As the photo of the accused along with Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy made rounds in the social media, the TDP was quick to point it out as his ‘political allegiance’.
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Telugu Desam Party president and Opposition leader N. Chandrababu Naidu dubbed it as a ‘political murder’ and called it the fifth in the series to happen in the temple city during the YSRCP regime. District party leaders also said the incident was enough evidence to the failing law and order situation. However, according to his friends and relatives, the victim had very little to do with politics and the murder could have been a result of one--to-one rivalry.