Dumped statues to stay in lake bed

Hyderabad: The 11 bronze statues of Andhra Pradesh personalities, which were dumped into the Hussainsagar, by Telangana agitators during the Million March, may remain in the lake bed forever. Department of culture, which had planned to fish out the statues during the Kiran Kumar Reddy government with the help of the Indian Navy, has now dropped the plan since new statues have been installed in their place.

Telangana state Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s recent statement that some “useless” statues of prominent AP figures would be removed, packed and parcelled with respect to Andhra Pradesh has also put the final nail in the issue.

“There is no plan to fish out the 11 statues from the Hussainsagar. We have installed new statues in the place of the damaged ones,” said Rallabandi Kavitha Prasad, director of department of culture.

Asked about using Navy divers’ help to retrieve the statues, he said the plan was as good as closed. Former chief minister N.T. Rama Rao had installed 33 statues of prominent Telugu personalities on Tank Bund as a tribute to their contribution in various fields. But the statues had been controversial from day one.

First it was alleged that all the statues resembled NTR, secondly the demand for installation of more personalities cropped up and during the peak of the Telangana movement, the statues became an example of “Andhra hegemony” and of ignoring Telangana personalities.

In a preplanned and select targeting of statues, angry Telangana agitators during the Million March on March 10, 2011, had pulled down 12 statues and dumped 11 of them in the Hussainsagar.

The 12th statue, of Bellary Raghava, a prominent drama artiste, could not be towed by the agitators and was left on the road. The dozen damaged statues were those of Brahma Naidu, Bellary Raghava, Sir Arthur Cotton, Krishnadevaraya, Annamacharya, Gurajada Appa Rao, Kandukuri Veereshalingam Pantulu, Yerrapragada, Raghupati Venkatratnam Naidu, Siddendrayogi, Mutnuri Krishna Rao and Tripuraneni Ramaswamy Choudhry.

Mr Chandrasekhar Rao had accused Andhra Pradesh leaders of foisting their personalities on Telangana soil and ignoring prominent Telangana personalities.
A statue of Adilabad tribal leader Komaram Bheem has since then been installed, which takes the number of statues on Tank Bund to 34 and the demand to install statues of more Telangana leaders is on the rise.