Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday unveiled the statue of Congress leader and former minister Gaddam Venkataswamy in a park near Hussain Sagar. Surprisingly, the function was organized without any participation for Congress bigwigs, while Congress paid rich floral tributes to Venkataswamy, who was popular as Kaka, in Gandhi Bhavan, party headquarters. The chief minister praised Kaka for his invaluable contribution to the Telangana movement. Recalling his valiant participation in 1969 Telangana movement, KCR said he marched forward in the movement even after hit by bullet in the firing. Kaka was one of the 10 members from Telangana Praja Samiti won in 1969 election. TPS was formed by a breakaway group of Congress demanding Telangana separate state. Congress MLA reached the venue after KCR left for Assembly.Opposition leader, Congress veteran had also not been invited to the dais.

Later, union labor minister Bandaru Dattatreya released the autobiography of Venkatasway. Dattatreya praised Venkataswamy as the pople’s leader of Telangana. The Telangana Congress party observed restraint to comment on the way the Kaka ‘s birth anniversary celebrated. As the talk that the Kaka’s son Vivekananda and Vinod are likely to shift to TRS was doing rounds, any comment would further strain the relations between Kaka family and the party, a senior leader from T-Congress remarked. The program, organized by the government of Telangana resembled like the TRS program as the many non-TRS admirers and friends of Kaka kept themselves away from the function.