Hyderabad Integration Day: KTR slams Amit Shah’s statement, recalls celebration

HYDERABAD: The celebration of the day marking the merger of Hyderabad State into Indian Union has become a querulous issue between the BJP-led Union Government and the BRS-led Telangana Government.

Working president of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Minister K T Rama Rao, has slammed the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah about the issue.

It may be recalled that Amit Shah had said on Sunday at Gorata, a Karnataka village on the border of Telangana, that the Telangana State Government was ‘hesitating’ to celebrate Hyderabad Liberation day. He had pointed out that the BJP had decided to celebrate the day in a grandiose manner. He claimed that the Union Government led by the BJP had celebrated the Liberation Day officially in 2022 and it would do so even this year.

However, KTR was quick to give his sharp reaction debunking the claim of the Home Minister. KTR in his tweet on Monday said: “HM @AmitShah Ji, 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.

KTR has attached a few newspaper clippings in which reports were published about the gala celebration of the National Integration Day.

While the BJP has been attempting to create an issue out of the celebration of the day of Hyderabad’s merger with Indian Union for a few years now, the Telangana Government sprang a surprise on 2022 by announcing the day – September 17 – as the National Integration Day. Hyderabad State under the Nizam was merged with Indian Union after a police action on September 17, 1948.

It may be recalled that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had said in his National Integration Day in 2022 that that "communal forces" were trying to spread hatred among people by dividing them on communal lines, as the divisive forces were promoting ‘religious fanaticism’.

KCR had said that the religious fanaticism would destroy the nation’s scular fabric and eventually derail peace and amity among people. The fanatics had nothing to do with the Hyderabad integration with Indian Union, he had pointed out.

While the BJP always tried to present a posture that the first Home Minister of India Sardar Patel, who was tasked with the integration of princely states into Indian Union by the first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, as some one who endorsed the BJP’s policies, it’s imperative to note that Patel was a Congressman.

While the BJP had celebrated the day as “Hyderabad Liberation Day” in an access-controlled environment, the Telangana Government had celebrated it as ‘Telangana National Integration Day.

The very nomenclature exposed the dichotomy, for the BJP called it ‘liberation’, as opposed to the Telangana Government’s “integration”.

KTR’s sharp reply to set the record straight explained the position of the Telangana Government clearly.