 "BJP eyes political push with Telangana Liberation Day meet")
BJP President Amit Shah is slated to address a public meeting to celebrate 'Telangana Liberation Day' on Saturday, a move that has come in for some sharp criticism by the ruling TRS.
BJP has been demanding the Telangana Government officially celebrate the occasion as "liberation day" as Hyderabad State was "liberated" through "police action" on September 17, 1948, more than a year after India got Independence.
"Shah is expected to mount a political attack on the TRS government in Telangana (at the public meeting at Hanamkonda in Warangal district), but is unlikely to be extremely confrontational", a senior BJP functionary said.
BJP considers the Nizam's rule in the erstwhile Hyderabad State as "tyrannical", "oppressive" and "autocratic" and claims that Telugu language was discouraged as the medium of instruction in educational institutions during their period.
TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samiti) does not share BJP's view and accused it of trying to indulge in "divisive politics".
"We always said our Nizam was certainly very good in lot of aspects and one or two things go wrong in everybody's rule", TRS MP K Kavitha said.
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"We say it's a merger day, not a liberation day. It's not a day to bring any differences between Hindu and Muslim communities in Telangna society".
BJP alleged that during the Telangana movement for separate statehood, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had demanded that then ruling government in undivided Andhra Pradesh should celebrate September 17 as Telangana Liberation Day.
"However, after coming to power and becoming Chief Minister, KCR has developed a forked tongue and is indulging in brazen double speak. Everyone in the state knows that TRS and CM KCR's U-turn on this issue is for vote bank politics and for his opportunistic political collusion with AIMIM," BJP Telangana official spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao alleged.
CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said his party wants Telangana government to officially celebrate the day, "in whatever name (liberation or merger) it wants to give".