Raids on Teenmaar Mallanna’s office: What’s behind BJP’s interest in satirical journalist?

Is Teenmaar Mallanna moving closer to the BJP in Telangana? This is the impression one got when the whole episode of the police raid on his Q News Channel office in Uppal’s Medipalli happened. As soon as the police reached the office to conduct a raid on Teenmaar Mallanna’s Q News office, several BJP leaders began protesting against the cops.

BJP MLA Raghunandan Rao of Dubbak, former MLA NVSS Prabhakar, BJYM state leader Bhanuprakash and several others rushed to the spot and began protesting against the raid. The raids began at about 7.30 PM on Tuesday and continued well past Wednesday morning. The police seized the equipment, hard discs and computers from the office. The raids were conducted on the basis of a complaint filed by one Jamalapuram Priyanka, who alleged that Teenmaar Mallanna aka Naveen Kumar was trying to assassinate her character.

Around 40 cops, most of them in mufti clothes, conducted the raid. As the news broke out, BJP leaders rushed to the spot to express their solidarity with Mallanna. It was surprising to see Raghunandan Rao and other leaders rush to his defence. Similarly, pro-BJP Velugu daily too covered the raids extensively. In fact, Mallanna is a past employee of the V 6, owned by the same management. Mallanna, who has been extremely critical of the TRS and KCR, has shot into fame with his satirical videos and had emerged second to winning TRS candidate Palla Rajeshwar Reddy in the recent Graduate MLC elections to Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda constituency.

There were allegations that the BJP had funded and supported Mallanna in the MLC elections ignoring its own candidate Premender Reddy. The way the BJP leaders rushed to support Mallanna has only confirmed these rumours.