HYDERABAD: Senior Congress leader V. Hanumantha Rao, a former Rajya Sabha member, said that he would tour the state and hold protests against the police for keeping a statue of Dr B.R. Ambedkar in its custody for four years.
The statue was in a police station and had not been installed at the Panjagutta circle in Hyderabad, he said. The state government had dishonoured the statue of the architect of the Constitution, the Congress leader said.
Speaking to reporters at Gandhi Bhavan here on Tuesday, Hanumantha Rao said that former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had followed the principles of Dr Ambedkar for social integration. “Being a follower of loyalists of the Gandhi family, I will follow their ideology,” he said.
Hanumantha Rao, a former PCC president, said that the Ambedkar statue was “unnecessarily removed” by the police from the Panjagutta circle after it had been installed. “I am ready to sacrifice my life for setting up the Ambedkar statue,” he said, turning emotional.
“Fabricating false cases, the police kept the statue in the police station,” he alleged. “We will fight against the anti-Ambedkar attitude of the government”, he said.
Hanumantha Rao said he had written to Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana over the Ambedkar statue issue. “I urged the CJI to take the initiative in this regard,” he said.
“I have brought the issue to the notice of TPCC president A. Revanth Reddy and CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka,” he said and asked BSP state coordinator Dr R.S.Praveen Kumar, a former IPS officer, as also leaders of other parties, to react on the issue.
“If Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has concern for the Dalits, he should immediately instal the Ambedkar statue at Panjagutta circle, he said.
