Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s move to install former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s statue in front of the state Secretariat has been attracting severe opposition from the BRS leadership. The BRS is particularly angry that the government has decided to place it in the place that was reserved for the installation of the `Telangana Thalli’ statue by the previous BRS government.
Warning against this move, BRS Executive President and former Minister K T Rama Rao made it clear that if the government moves ahead installing Rajiv Gandhi’s statue, he asserted that once the BRS returned to power, they would remove Rajiv Gandhi’s statue and install the Telangana Talli statue at the same location.
KTR advised Chief Minister Revanth Reddy that it is not good practice to change names with the change of a government. He recalled that they had never tried to change the name of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.
If it was intended, he said they would have changed Rajiv Gandhi’s name after a prominent Telangana icon, following the precedent set by other States, such as Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport and Bengaluru’s Kempegowda Airport. “If we intended we might have changed it after the names of PV Narasimha Rao or Prof Jayashankar. But we never thought in those lines”, he said.
He recalled that during the BRS’s 10-year rule, they refrained from renaming initiatives and organisations such as Rajiv Aarogyasri, Rajiv Rahadari State Highway, Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge and Technology, Rajiv Gandhi Stadium at Uppal and Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. However, he deplored that the Congress’s recent actions had now forced the BRS to reconsider its stance.
If Revanth Reddy wants to impress his boss Rahul Gandhi, KTR advises him that he can place the statue of Rajiv Gandhi at Gandhi Bhavan or his own residence. Installing it opposite the State Secretariat in a location publicly announced for Telangana Talli is highly objectionable, he added.
Strongly objecting Congress attitude of disregarding the sentiments of the people of Telangana by disrespecting Telangana Talli, KTR warned that the BRS would not tolerate such actions and would consider renaming all institutions named after Congress national leaders in Telangana if they returned to power.