Bandi brings ‘tukde’ phrase into film industry, netizens disapprove  

“The right lesson has been taught to those who supported the Tukde gang who wanted to break the country,” Bandi Sanjay added.  

Hyderabad: On Sunday, soon after actor Manchu Vishnu was declared president of the Movie Artists Association (MAA), the apex body of the Telugu film industry, Bharatiya Janata Party State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar did not waste time in congratulating winners.  

However, his tweets were not exactly just congratulations for an election victory. The BJP leader’s wishes for the Manchu panel were for ‘securing nationalism’. He did not stop there, adding a few barbs directed at Prakash Raj, who is known for his continued aggressive stance against BJP and its leaders. 

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“The right lesson has been taught to those who supported the Tukde gang who wanted to break the country,” Bandi Sanjay added.  

For those who are wondering what that means, ‘tukde tukde gang’ is a sarcastic catchphrase used by the saffron party and its supporters to accuse their critics of sedition and anti-nationalism. The phrase can be translated as ‘a gang that wants to divide the country’ and is now commonly used by the BJP to stigmatize all those, including political opponents, who have different political views. 

Prakash Raj, who contested the Lok Sabha election in 2019 from Bengaluru Central constituency as an independent candidate, has been an open critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, for which the BJP has been repeatedly branding him anti-Hindu. The MAA elections too saw a few comments targeting Prakash Raj for his anti-BJP stance. With Bandi Sanjay too taking up the ‘tukde’ gang phrase to target Prakash Raj, however, netizens have registered their protest.  

Their main question was why even those in the film industry were getting dragged into political controversies, and why political parties were trying to get involved in the MAA elections, which are in no way connected to them.  

Apart from asking Bandi Sanjay to focus on public issues, many responding to his tweets on the MAA election results, asked the MP to return to his duties as an MP. 

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