KTR slams Amit Shah’s ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’ remark, a row in the making?

Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao slammed Union Minister Amit Shah after his criticism of Telangana government for not celebrating ‘ Hyderabad Liberation Day’.

The K Chandrasekhar Rao administration commemorates September 17 as ‘Telangana National Integration Day,’ marking Hyderabad state’s annexation to India.

Opening Gorata Martyrs’ Memorial in Karnataka’s Bidar district on Sunday, Shah said ‘ more than 200 people were massacred here in Gorata by the Brutal Nizam’.

Adding further, Shah said ‘but due to its appeasement policy, the Congress never remembered those who fought and sacrificed their lives for Hyderabad liberation only for its greed for vote bank’, The News Minute quoted him as saying.

Sitting 140 km away from Hyderabad, Bidar was part of the erstwhile Hyderabad state as were a few other states of today’s Karnataka.

Amit Shah reminded when BS Yediyurappa was the chief minister in 2019, the ‘Hyderabad-Karnataka’ region was renamed as ‘Kalyana-Karnataka’.

Afterwards, the Union minister accused the BRS government of “hesitating” to celebrate ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day.’

Telangana Minister KTR did not wait to hit back saying the government officially celebrated ‘Telangana National Integration Day’ on September 17, adding that Shah’s ‘blatant misrepresentation” was “unbecoming of the stature of a Union Home Minister,” according to the report.

“17th September has been celebrated by Telangana Govt officially as National integration day since Hyderabad state was integrated into Indian union on the same day in 1948. Your blatant misrepresentation is indeed unbecoming of the stature of a Union HM (sic),” KTR reportedly said.

Asking Shah to stop being the prisoner of the past, KTR said respectful commemoration of the sacrifices and struggles against oppressors is important, adding that ‘ Why do we celebrate 15th August as Independence Day and not as Liberation Day?’.

The debates surrounding the Hyderabad’s annexation dates back to incidents taken place on September 17, 1948 after the Indian Union, led by then Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Patel, annexed Hyderabad state through ‘ Operation Polo’, taking over power from Mir Osman Alik Khan who was the last Nizam of the state.

Since the formation of Telangana the BJP has been urging the state authorities to celebrate September 17 as ‘ Liberation Day’. The saffron party revived the demand ahead of the 2023 state Assembly polls.

The previous governments avoided official celebrations fearing communal violence as thousands of Muslims were killed in ‘ Operation Polo’, according to the report.

Meanwhile the BRS and other parties previously observed ‘Telangana Merger Day’; however last year, it was renamed as the ‘Telangana National Integration Day’.

It came after All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi urged in writing to both Amit Shah and the state governments to celebrate the day so.