Published Aug 16, 2022 | 5:09 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 17, 2022 | 7:41 AM
Telangana Chief Minister KCR organised a grand national anthem event at the iconic statue of Jawaharlal Nehru at Abids circle. (KCR/Twitter)
In yet another move that can only rile the BJP-ruled Centre, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday, 16 August, paid tribute to India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru at one of his iconic statues at Abids circle, once the heart of Hyderabad.
The event, replete with a rendering of the National Anthem, was a part of the state’s ongoing, two-week-long Swatantra Bharata Vajrotsavalu — itself a move to counter the BJP’s efforts to set the “nationalist” agenda with its “Har Ghar Tiranga” campaign.
In its bid to undermine the Gandhis of the Congress, the saffron party loses no opportunity to belittle Nehru, even whitewashing his role in the Indian independence movement.
For instance, advertisements released commemorating Independence Day by BJP governments made no mention of the former prime minister’s role in India’s freedom struggle.
Sources close to KCR told South First that, by choosing to hold the event at Abids circle a day after Independence Day, KCR not only clearly signalled his disapproval of the BJP’s reworking of history, but also indicated that he will actively work to counter it by paying tributes where they are due.
The BJP High Command would also not have missed the fact that KCR gave the Independence Day ‘At Home’ hosted by Governor Soundararajan Tamilisai a miss on Monday — a clear snub to the Centre, with which he has been jousting for a while now.
This seems to be the latest of KCR’s moves from his political repertoire to take on the BJP.
Analysts believe that KCR, with his frequent and fiery attacks on the BJP and the Centre, is clearly positioning himself as principal political opponent of the party.
KCR at the Abids circle statue of Nehru on 16 August. (KCR/Twitter)
In this regard he’s also adopting the persona of a welfarist politician concerned with the poor, as opposed to the BJP’s “divisive, religion-driven politics”.
In fact, at the moment, at the national level, too, he is the only chief minister who is raising a sharp voice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-ruled Centre — apart from Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
His relations with the BJP began taking a nose-dive when the saffron party showed the “audacity” to win the Huzurabad Assembly seat in November 2021. What angered KCR more was that the BJP candidate was Etela Rajender, who he had hounded out of the party and from his cabinet for “conspiring” against him.
For the TRS, which was already unhappy over the BJP winning a considerable number of seats in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation in 2020, Etela’s victory only added fuel to the fire. The spark of hatred that ignited against the BJP for harbouring Eatala turned into a full-blown war against the saffron party subsequently.
The choice of venue for Tuesday’s grand event — Abids circle, where the statue of Nehru with a dove stands — was significant.
The area was once the nerve centre of Hyderabad. It was where the General Post Office is located; Nampally railway station is just a stone’s throw away, and the famed Mozamjahi Fruit Market is nearby. The area had a shop known as Abid’s belonging to an Armenian merchant known as Albert Abid, a valet of Nizam VI of Hyderabad state.
