Mumbai, Oct 3 : Politician Konda Surekha's comments on the divorce of Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Ruth Prabhu has drawn a lot of flak. The Akkineni family has now called out the politician for insensitive remarks.

Naga Chaitanya has released a statement on his X condemning Surekha's remarks. He wrote, 'The decision of divorce is easily one of the most painful and unfortunate life decisions one has to make. After a lot of thought, a mutual decision was made by me and my former spouse to part ways. It was a decision made in peace, owing to our different life goals and in the interest of moving forward with respect and dignity as two mature adults. However, there have been various baseless and completely ridiculous gossips on the matter so far. I have remained silent all this while out of deep respect for my earlier spouse as well as my family'.

He further mentioned, 'Today, the claim made by Minister Konda Surekha garu is not only false, it is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable. Women deserve to be supported and respected. Taking advantage and exploiting the personal life decisions of celebrities for the sake of media headlines is shameful'.

Konda Surekha had said that her political opponent KTR was behind Samantha Prabhu-Naga Chaitanya's divorce.

Earlier, Naga Chaitanya's step-mother Amala Akkineni strongly reacted to Konda's statement as she launched a scathing attack on the latter.

Amala wrote on her X, 'Shocked to hear a woman minister turn into a demon, conjuring evil fiction allegations, preying on decent citizens as fuel for a political war. Madam Minister, do you rely and believe people with no decency to feed you utterly scandalous stories about my husband without an iota of shame or truth? This is really shameful. If leaders lower themselves into the gutter and behave like criminals, what will happen to our country? Mr Rahul Gandhi ji, if you believe in human decency, please restrain your politicians and make your minister retract her venomous statements with an apology to my family. Protect the citizens of this country'.

Amala's younger son, and Naga Chaitanya's step-brother Akhil re-shared his mother's sentiments as he quoted his mother on X, and wrote, 'My dear mother I support every word you have said and I am With you and the family. I'm sorry that you have to address this demonic nonsense but we have no choice sometimes but to deal with such sociopaths'.

Prior to this, Naga Chaitanya's father Nagarjuna, and the former's ex-wife Samantha had condemned Konda. Nagarjuna even asked Konda to not use his family's name to settle her political scores.

In the light of these events, Surekha has retracted her statement. Taking to her X account, she wrote in Telugu, 'My intention was only to point out how a leader is belittling towards women but not to hurt your sentiments, Samantha. The way you have grown exponentially by yourself is something I admire and aspire to. If you or your fans have been hurt by my words, I unconditionally retract them. Please do not take it otherwise'.

/IANS