Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asks the crowd to listen to her during her speech at the launch of the Global Horticulture Hub – Rayalaseema Rising project in Madanapalle on October 2, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
A 30-second interruption to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech at Madanapalle on October 2 turned into a political row on Sunday (October 4, 2026), after a clip of it went viral on X with the claim that the crowd had been “demanding jobs”. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, in a reply to a video post on X, called it public anger. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Ms. Sitharaman, and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and BJP leaders replied to Mr. Ramesh’s post, saying it was the “overwhelming and enthusiastic response” of party workers.
Ms. Sitharaman was speaking in Telugu at the launch of the “Global Horticulture Hub – Rayalaseema Rising” project in Madanapalle, Rayalaseema, when some people in the audience began shouting (what the crowd was shouting is not distinct in the clip). In the clip, she asks the crowd twice to listen to her for a minute, pauses and then steps aside. Mr. Naidu asks the audience to sit down, saying a Union Minister’s message at a programme that would change farmers’ lives was important, and that he and Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan would step out after the programme, when they could “make whatever slogans you want”. He asks people climbing a railing to get down, speaks for about 70 seconds, and Ms. Sitharaman resumes.
The clip was posted on Sunday by a user who said the crowd had shouted “give jobs first”, and it had drawn over six lakh views by evening. Mr. Ramesh reposted it with the comment, in Hindi: “The Finance Minister herself is seeing how much anger there is among the public. The Chief Minister had to silence the people.”
Responding on X, Mr. Naidu said Mr. Ramesh’s interpretation “could not be further from reality”, and that what was being portrayed as public anger was “an overwhelming and enthusiastic response from the people”. The enthusiasm of the gathering required him to intervene briefly to ensure the programme proceeded smoothly, he said, and “politically motivated social media narratives cannot change what people themselves felt and expressed.”
Ms. Sitharaman replied that TDP and Jana Sena Party (JSP) workers had been keen to interact with Mr. Naidu and Mr. Pawan Kalyan, and the Chief Minister had told them the two would come out after the programme. “Unbelievable, Jairam. Didn’t think you were impetuous,” she wrote. “That was all there is to it.”
IT Minister Nara Lokesh accused the Congress leader of circulating “fake news” without verifying the facts. He said there was no disruption of the Finance Minister’s speech by youth demanding jobs, and alleged that a normal interaction with an enthusiastic gathering had been selectively clipped and given a misleading narrative. He urged Mr. Ramesh to verify facts before posting on social media and asked him to delete what he described as a false claim.
Andhra Pradesh BJP chief P.V.N. Madhav echoed the government’s position, saying a routine interaction with the gathering had been portrayed as an organised jobs protest.
The October 2 event saw Mr. Naidu and Ms. Sitharaman lay the foundation stones for the ₹1-lakh-crore horticulture hub and the Indian School of Agriculture .
Published – October 04, 2026 09:48 pm IST
