HYDERABAD: The BJP, intensifying its tirade against the TRS, is expected to reiterate its long-pending demand that the state government officially celebrate the Telangana Liberation Day on September 17, marking the merger of the then Hyderabad state with the Indian Union in 1948.
To give a strong push to the state BJP, the Central government is likely to officially celebrate the day through the ministry of culture. Incidentally, this ministry is headed by minister G. Kishan Reddy, the party MP from Secunderabad, a key figure in the party as it makes its moves to come to power in Telangana.
A series of yearlong events commemorating various events associated with liberation of Hyderabad state culminating on September 17, 2023 is on cards. For the BJP, 2023 holds great significance as that year will mark 75 years of the Indian Union becoming complete with the merger of Hyderabad state. September 17 also happens to be the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The BJP hopes that celebrations of the 75th anniversary of merger of Hyderabad state with Indian Union will give it just the additional push as it sprints towards the finish line for the Assembly polls scheduled to be held sometime around December 2023.
It was on September 17 last year, while addressing a public meeting in Nirmal, home minister Amit Shah described the day as “Telangana’s Independence Day,” and invoked the role of India’s first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in liberation of Hyderabad state.
The BJP leaders have never lost an opportunity to remind people that Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao had promised during the movement for statehood that the TRS government would make September 17 an official celebration, but after coming to power it never did so. They also will take aim at their bitter political rival, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and its leader and Hyderabad MP, Asaduddin Owaisi.
Incidentally, during the recent national executive meeting of the BJP in the city, a photo and materials exhibition that every BJP leader attending the meeting visited, had devoted a significant chunk of the exhibits on the liberation of Hyderabad and its merger with the Indian Union.
