BRS Working President KT Rama Rao lashed out at Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy for showering “hypocritical love” on former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi as the latter hurriedly performed the rituals for the installation of the statue of Telangana Talli (Telangana’s mother) inside the Secretariat premises.

The BRS and ruling Congress have been in a tussle over the state government’s plan to install the statue of the late prime minister on a spot near the Ambedkar statue which had been earmarked for an idol of Telangana Talli by the previous BRS government. Rao slammed Congress for alleging collusion between the BRS and the BJP after his sister and party MLC Kavitha got bail in the Delhi Liquor scam cases from the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday morning, Revanth Reddy went ahead with the programme in the absence of the deputy chief minister and other senior ministers since there were no auspicious dates for the ceremony till Dussehra. He announced the statue would be installed on 9 December, the birthday of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi.

He criticized the BRS regime, saying, “The previous government had acted in such a way that they considered Telangana as their own property or asset.”

Reminding the people that the public was earlier barred from the Secretariat, he said his government would install the statue of Telangana Talli in the Secretariat as it is the heart of the state administration. “The previous government presented Budgets worth Rs 22.50 lakh crore in ten years yet failed to spend a crore on the installation of the statue of Telangana Talli in the Secretariat,” said Reddy.

Telangana Talli statue, he said, should reflect the cultural ethos of the state instead of feudal characteristics, and hence the task of designing the statue has been entrusted upon the fine arts department of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University.

He said since the statues of Dr BR Ambedkar, PV Narasimha Rao, Indira Gandhi, and Jaipal Reddy were installed around Necklace Road and Tank Bund, the government, on the suggestions of intellectuals, has decided to install the statue of Rajiv Gandhi in the vicinity. He slammed the BRS for politicising the move by linking it with that of Telangana Talli.

But KT Rama Rao has a different take on it. He wrote in a post on X, “Everyone is aware of the true colours of the hypocritical love he (Revanth Reddy) is showering on Rajiv Gandhi after becoming the PCC president through the backdoor. Reddy had called Sonia Gandhi a ‘demon, a ghost, a sacrificial deity’, and threatened to remove the statue of Rajiv Gandhi once again.

In another post, he slammed the Telangana Congress leader who suggested that the merger between BRS and BJP has begun with Kavitha getting bail. He cited the cases of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi and Manish Sisodia who are out on bail as was the Chief Minister Revanth Reddy himself.