Hyderabad, August 19. Acting Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president KT Rama Rao on Monday reiterated that the statue of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in front of the state secretariat would be removed once the BRS comes to power in Telangana.

He said the site was meant for Telangana Talli but the Congress government installed the statue of Rajiv Gandhi.

“After BRS returns to power, we will remove the statue of Rajiv Gandhi and install the statue of Telangana Talli,” he said.

He claimed that the Congress party had insulted Telangana and the self-respect of the state and this would not be forgotten by the Telangana society.

KTR, as the BRS chairman is popularly known, also said that in future, BRS will also remove the names of Congress leaders Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi from the government’s programmes and posts.

He said the name of Hyderabad International Airport, currently named after Rajiv Gandhi, would also be changed and named after a prominent personality from Telangana.

The BRS Chairman’s Secretariat was in a dilapidated condition in united Andhra Pradesh and hence after the formation of Telangana state, KCR decided to rebuild it. He claimed that the new building reflected the pride and glory of Telangana. As a tribute to Baba Saheb Ambedkar, his tallest statue was installed and the Secretariat was named after him.

He said KCR also constructed the Telangana Martyrs Memorial in front of the Secretariat so that the rulers sitting in the Secretariat are constantly reminded of the sacrifices of the martyrs. An island was constructed in front of the Secretariat building and it was decided to install the Telangana Talli statue

He recalled that a park constructed in the name of former Prime Minister Anjaiah was renamed Lumbini Park and that a statue of Rajiv Gandhi, who had insulted Anjaiah, was now being installed in front of the same park.

Although schemes and places in Telangana bear the names of Congress leaders, the BRS government did not change the names during its ten-year rule.

“There is Rajiv Arogyasri, Rajiv Gandhi IIIT, Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, Rajiv Rahdari and Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. Now when the Congress government is insulting Telangana Talli, which symbolises the existence of Telangana, we are compelled to say that we will remove Rajiv Gandhi’s statue,” he said.

“Our fight was for existence and self-respect. After four years, BRS will come back to power under the leadership of KCR,” KTR added.

BRS, which ruled Telangana since the state’s formation in 2014, lost power to Congress in December last year.

The party also came away empty-handed in the Lok Sabha elections in May 2024.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor.

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