Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments are slowly purging the states of memories of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi by removing their names from the projects christened during the days of united Andhra Pradesh, when YS Rajasekhar Reddy was chief mister.
Rajasekhar Reddy named every new project he initiated after either Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Following the decimation of Congress party in the 2014 elections, two successor states- Andhra Pradesh and Telangana started renaming the projects. While recently, Andhra Pradesh government renamed the Indira Sagar Project as Polavaram project, Telangana government is imitating AP now.
Telangana irrigation minister T Harishrao instructed the officials to rename the lift irrigation project at Paler in Khammam district after saint-poet Bhata Ramdas and the integrated Rajiv Sagar and Indira Sagar or Dummugudem Lift Irrigation project as Sitarama Project. The new names have been finalised at a meeting presided over by Harish Rao to discuss the progress of the irrigation projects in the State.
The Congress however, took strong objection to the renaming of Dummuguden project. Telangana Congress working president Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said it amounts to political vendetta. ” Names are being changed just because these projects were initiated by the previous Congress government,” he said. Bhatti alleged that the TRS was trying to appropriate the good works done by the Congress government by changing names. Talking to telugu360.com he said chief minister KCR was under the impression that by erasing the names of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi he could liquidate the Congress in the state, which, he said, was TRS’ day dream.
Writing a letter to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, he said, the name change had amounted to insulting the great leaders in whose names the projects were conceived.
TDP government in Andhra Pradesh is too swift in changing the names of the projects following Congress’ failure to open account in Assembly elections in 2014. The TDP government is substituting the names of Indira and Rajiv with NTR, the founder of Telugu Desam Party.
First, Chandrababu Naidu’s government renamed Indira Jala Prabha, a program launched by YS Rajasekhar Reddy, which was meant to provide irrigation to the lands owned by SC and ST farmers as NTR Jala Sri . Later ‘Rajiv Arogya Sri’ an health insurance scheme meant for the poor changed to “Dr Nandamuri Taraka Ramaro Arogya Seva”. In continuation of purging of the state of Congress foot prints, Rajiv Gandhi’s name had been dropped from the Rajiv Yuva Shakti scheme , launched to provide assistance to youth for self-employment activities. The scheme is now ‘ chief minister’s empowerment of youth”.
