Eye on Telangana polls, Shah to attend special event in Hyderabad

NEW DELHI: With an eye on the 2023 assembly polls in Telangana, a political slugfest has broken out over how parties will celebrate September 17, the day on which Hyderabad was formally included into the Union of India.
While the Narendra Modi-led BJP government has decided to kickstart year-long celebrations of the ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’ from the day, the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Telangana government said it will refer to September 17 as ‘National Integration Day’.
The Left parties, on the other hand, began week-long celebrations of a communist-backed armed uprising that they claim countered Hyderabad’s regressive last Nizam, Osman Ali Khan and his Razakar supporters (led by Qasim Razvi, whose Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen opposed Hyderabad’s accession to India), even before the Government of India launched police action that led to Hyderabad being annexed by the Union ofIndia.
The Union culture ministry, on the other hand, has invited KCR, along with the chief ministers of Karnataka and Maharashtra to the inaugural programme of the ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’ at Hyderabad Parade Grounds, where home minister Amit Shah will be chief guest. In his September 3 letter to the three chief ministers, BJP’s Secunderabad MP G Kishen Reddy said thecelebrations will “showcase the sacrifices who fought against atrocities of Nizam and the Razakars”.