Senior Telugu Desam Party leader and Vizianagaram MP P Ashok Gajapathi Raju is a seasoned politician.
He prefers to maintain a very low profile and does not entertain any felicitations or pampering.
During the recent crisis following the withdrawal of the TDP from the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre, Raju, who was holding a very important portfolio of Civil Aviation, also resigned from the Union cabinet. Yet, he did not come out like other TDP leaders to claim it as a big sacrifice.
However, the TDP leaders back home in his constituency in the district thought of giving him a warm welcome when he returned to Vizianagaram a couple of days ago. They put up a big flex poster with his cut-out extending a rousing welcome to him and eulogising his immense sacrifice for achieving special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
But those who had a look at the poster were shocked to find certain words which were actually insulting Raju, rather than praising him.
The words in Telugu read like this: “Raju Kalankithudu, Rathi Raju, Sareera Viheenudu, Ambika Naathudu, Digambarudu, Mrugaraju, Grahantara Vaasi, Maaraju..”
A true translation of these words is like this: “A person of bad image with full of spots, king in intercourse, man with disfigured body, husband of Ambika, naked person, king of animals, an alien belonging to different planet and our king…”
One does not know whether the TDP leaders of Bhogapuram and Poosapati Rega, who put up the poster, used these words unintentionally as they felt these words make powerful description or it was a mischief by somebody who misled the TDP leaders. In any case, they were too humiliating for a soft person like Raju!
