The main opposition BRS upped the ante against the Congress, accusing the latter of deliberately neglecting and dishonouring Dr BR Ambedkar on his birth anniversary, without garlanding his 125 feet statue in Hyderabad on Sunday. The party demanded Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and the State government to tender an unconditional apology to the people of the nation for violating the constitutional mandate and failure to fulfill fundamental civic duties.
In an open letter to the Chief Minister, BRS Hyderabad in-charge Dasoju Sravan said Revanth Reddy and his government committed a heinous crime to satisfy his prejudice, ego and petty politics of vengeance towards former Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao who installed the world’s tallest statue of Dr Ambedkar. “Your government’s deliberate action of neglecting, dishonouring, not decorating, and not even garlanding the world’s largest statue is not an insult only to Dr BR Ambedkar, but an insult to every citizen of Telangana and every Ambedkarite nationwide,” he
said.
Former Minister S Niranjan Reddy echoed similar sentiments during a press conference and stated that not only did the State government neglected the 125 feet tall statue of Dr Ambedkar, but also did not allow civil organisations and citizens of the country to pay tributes to him at the statue on his birth anniversary. He said the Congress never had respect for the chief architect of the Constitution and modern India. He reminded that the Congress fielded candidate and defeated Dr Ambedkar when the latter contested to the Parliament.
“Despite his contribution and service to the nation, Dr Ambedkar was ignored by the successive Congress governments. Only after VP Singh took over as the Prime Minister of India, did the Centre honoured Dr Ambedkar with Bharat Ratna, which indicates the Congress party’s sheer disrespect to him,” he said. He said by disrespecting Dr Ambedkar, the Congress has insulted all its citizens. He advised the Congress against treating the Dalits and the minorities as mere vote banks and instead, learn to respect their sentiments.