Hyderabad:
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is set to unveil a statue of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on Monday. The statue will be placed on the island in front of the state secretariat building. This comes amid ongoing political tensions between the ruling Congress party and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).
In August, Revanth Reddy announced the government’s decision to install Rajiv Gandhi’s statue at the secretariat. This sparked a political argument between the Congress and BRS. The BRS claimed that they had initially planned to place a statue of Telangana Talli on the island. They also pointed out that there’s already a Rajiv Gandhi statue at Begumpet, just 3 kilometers away from the secretariat. BRS working president K T Rama Rao even vowed to remove the statue if his party came to power.
Revanth Reddy responded by saying that the BRS should not overreact. He gave two reasons: first, he believes the BRS will not return to power for the next 10 years, and second, the statue of Telangana Talli will still be installed within the secretariat on December 9. This date is significant as it marks the birthday of Sonia Gandhi and the day she announced the decision for a separate Telangana state.
Initially, the Congress had planned for the statue of Rajiv Gandhi to be unveiled by Sonia Gandhi, alongside AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and other senior party leaders, on Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary. However, this event was postponed.
