Controversy around NTR's statue deepens

Hyderabad, Dec 10 (INN): The politics of NTR statue has snowballed into a controversy with the open letters of Union Minister D Purandeswari and TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu bringing out an old hatchet that refuses to be buried.

The daughter of NTR is the triumph card Congress Party has up its sleeve and the announcement of installing NTR statue in Parliament gives it an edge and Purandesari breaking the news has put the credit in Congress credit.

NTR, who founded his party on a staunch anti-Congress platform, was dethroned in a bloodless coup by N Chandrababu Naidu and took control of TDP and Chief Minister post in 1995.

Naidu, who has been invoking NTR's name of late to keep the stakes of his party high, has to fight tooth and nail to take his (TDP's) pound of flesh in terms of credit in getting the statue installed in Parliament.

Thus began the war of words in a bid to claim credit for NTR statue. While Purandeswari claims that it was Naidu who stalled the event earlier, Naidu had to hit back saying that the statue in Parliament is the result of TDP's ground work.

Who is correct or not is beyond the debate, moral victory goes to Purandeswari and it is a paradox that NTR's statue should be unveiled by a Government headed by Congress, a Party that was opposed by NTR all his political career.

The situation changed drastically, when Purandeswari joined Congress and she rewarded with a cabinet berth and when her constituency, in the delimitation process became a reserved seat, she was shifted to Visakhapatnam, not with resistance.

The sitting MP N Janardhan Reddy was shunted to Rajya Sabha and a strong contender T Subbarami Reddy was silenced to accommodate Purandeswari who retained the seat for Congress and she continued in the union cabinet.

Chandrababu Nadu, who had a good sway in the Union politics with outside support to NDA and before that the United Front experiment, could not manage to get the NTR statue in the Parliament though he was vocal about Bharat Ratna to NTR.

The news of NTR statue in Parliament is good for TDP but Congress taking the credit cannot be digested by him or the Party. Naidu and his Party will be facing criticism for not being able to press for the demand. Of late he had been very critical of YSR statues and drew flak when the NTR statue was raised by YSRCP.

Tracing the history of the case, the proposal to install the statue was taken more than years back when TDP was in power in the State. Things took a concrete shape with Parliamentary Affairs Committee okaying the matter.

Technically speaking statues of freedom fighters and parliament members can only be installed in the Parliament, as NTR was neither, laws have to be amended and now things have moved positively.

They have been digging old graves with Naidu contending that when the matter was to be taken up at State level, TDP was not in power and their sincerity need not be questioned. Purandeswari questioned as to why Naidu did not pursue the matter for ten years.

The blame game continued in open letters even as doubts being expressed over the authenticity of the permission. The war of words has heated up and took the form of open letters and it may percolate to election battles that are to come sooner or later.