Bengaluru, 26 April

Supporters of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) head and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu allegedly heckled Hyderabad-based stand-up comedian Sarat Uday at his show here in Kormangala on Saturday over a two-year-old video in which he had cracked jokes on their leaders.

Around 7pm, in the middle of Sarat’s show, a group of agitated supporters of the TDP leader reportedly stood up and walked onto the stage to confront the comic artist for his video on Naidu.

He had reportedly uploaded the said video two years ago, and after furious protests from TDP supporters, he had issued a public apology then.

On Saturday evening, the TDP supporters, however, asked Sarat to once again apologise before the audience over his two-year-old video and warned him of dire consequences if he ever dared to do the same in his future shows.

In the video recording of the incident, one of the supporters was heard saying, “I’m your fan, you do comedy very well. But in one show, you insulted our leader.” Then a group of five people were seen threatening Sarat on stage.

But when the miscreants asked the artist to shout ‘Jai TDP’, which he refused to do, the TDP supporters got very angry. They abused the artist in front of the audience. When they tried to go back to their seats, Sarat asked them to leave the show.

The alleged TDP supporters demanded a refund for the ticket they claimed they had purchased for the show. But when they were asked to show their tickets, they could not do so and abruptly left the show before the police could reach the spot of the incident.

This is the third incident in which comedians were threatened or arrested for jokes about politicians from the ruling parties in Andhra Pradesh.