Telangana govt selects rejected ideas for Republic Day

Hyderabad: The Telangana state government has approached the Central government again with ideas that were rejected earlier for its tableaux at Republic Day celebrations, 2017.

The government proposed a tableaux with themes on Sammakka Saralamma Jatara, the famous tribal festival in Warangal district; the Perini Shivathandavam dance form and Bathukamma, the Telangana state festival.

All these ideas were submitted last year and rejected by the selection committee which termed them “sub-standard.’’ Despite this, officials have proposed the same ideas for this year.

The ideas submitted by government were dismissed right from the first year of participation in 2015. As a special case, the Centre had allowed Telangana state to display Bonalu festival in 2015, on the grounds of the state was newly-formed. This was after Chief Minister K. Chandras-ekhar Rao made a special request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Manohar Parrikar.

All states mark their presence on the Republic Day through their tableaux after the show of military might. Officials justified submitting the same old ideas saying that the earlier rejection was not because the theme wasn’t good but because of the presentations.

“This time, we have made several improvements on the display contents. 3-D effects will be used in the tableaux for effective presentation with good music background. We are confident of making it to Republic Day parade this year,” said an official of the culture department.

He said the preliminary meeting of the selection committee was held recently in which all the three themes were presented. The committee was impressed with Bathukamma theme and asked it to attend the next round of selection process in October.