Hyderabad: A massive Telangana Talli statue will be unveiled in the Secretariat on December 9. This event is planned to be as grand as the Million March, a significant event during the struggle for separate Telangana that saw nearly one lakh people gather.
December 9 is a special date for Telangana. It was on this day in 2009 that then Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram announced the process of forming the Telangana state. This day also marks the birthday of Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, who played a key role in fulfilling the long-standing demand for Telangana statehood.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy made this announcement after laying the foundation stone for the Telangana Talli statue. He mentioned that Sonia Gandhi would be invited to the unveiling ceremony.
In a subtle criticism of the previous BRS government, the Chief Minister pointed out that despite being in power for 10 years, the BRS leaders failed to install a statue of Telangana Talli. He accused them of prioritizing themselves over Telangana Talli, acting as if they were more important than the symbol of the state itself.
Revanth Reddy highlighted that the BRS government managed a budget of about Rs 22.50 lakh crore over the last decade, yet they did not allocate a mere Rs 1 crore for the Telangana Talli statue. He emphasized that the statue should represent pride and be a source of inspiration, and thus, the responsibility of designing it has been given to the JNTU Fine Arts College.
The Chief Minister also criticized certain groups for trying to misuse the area in front of the Secretariat for selfish reasons. He mentioned that although the government, after consulting intellectuals, had decided to install a statue of Rajiv Gandhi in that space, BRS leaders were exaggerating the issue.
Revanth Reddy reminded people of how Telangana citizens were once barred from entering Pragati Bhavan and Secretariat. He described Pragati Bhavan as a restricted fort during the previous regime, where the then Chief Minister rarely visited the Secretariat. In contrast, he and his ministers are now running the government from the Secretariat, and Praja Bhavan is open to the public. He urged people to observe and feel the difference in governance between the 10 years of BRS rule and the last nine months under the Congress government.
