Governor chooses R-Day for bitter political rhetoric

Soundararajan turned the Republic Day speech into a political weapon, with indirect criticism against the State, saying that constructing new buildings was not development.

Hyderabad: Even as the people of the State celebrated the 74th Republic Day of the country with much fervor, Telangana hit national headlines for all the wrong reasons with Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan choosing the day to attempt a few unsavoury, political barbs at the State government.

Not stopping with her cryptic remarks at the Raj Bhavan here, Soundararajan continued the sour political rhetoric at Puducherry too, drawing flak from multiple quarters.

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In Hyderabad, Soundararajan turned the Republic Day speech into a political weapon, with indirect criticism against the State, saying that constructing new buildings was not development. Reading out a speech that was not cleared by the State Cabinet, she said the focus should instead be on nation building.

“All farmers and marginalised people should have farms and houses. Only a few should not have farmhouses. That is not development,” she said, going on to say that it was not ‘development’ to say one was sending his or her child abroad to study.

“Every child should study in universities with world class infrastructure,” said Soundararajan, who incidentally is yet to clear the Telangana State Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Bill and the Telangana Universities Common Recruitment Board Bill.

The Governor, who has been accusing the State government of not following protocol and disrespecting her office, also deviated from the text prepared by her own office in her bid to criticize the State government. She also dragged in suicides in the State into her speech, alleging that there were ‘stressful conditions’ in Telangana. Citing ‘national statistics’, she alleged that there was about one suicide every hour in the State.

Not stopping with that, she continued in the same vein at the Republic Day celebrations in Puducherry where she is an in-charge Lieutenant Governor, accusing the Telangana government of not respecting the Constitution and the guidelines of the Centre on Republic Day celebrations. She alleged that the Telangana government had confined the Republic Day parade to the Raj Bhavan citing lack of time despite High Court orders.

“Though I wrote two months ago to the State government for holding the Republic Day celebrations amidst the people, they responded only two days ago. I have already informed the union government about the conditions prevailing in Telangana and will report the latest incident as well,” she said, also demanding to know why Covid-19 restrictions that were not applicable to the Khammam public meeting of the BRS, were being observed for holding the Republic Day celebrations. Interestingly, she had earlier expressed displeasure at the Khammam meeting too, frowning at the criticism by Chief Ministers of different States of the manner in which Governors in non-BJP ruled States were acting as stooges of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

There was criticism against her from Puducherry too, where for the second consecutive year, she delayed the unfurling of the tricolour and instead of 9.30 am as per schedule, did it at 10.30 am. Questions were raised on her reaching late when several dignitaries including Puducherry Chief Minister N Rangaswamy, Ministers, elected representatives and general public including children were forced to wait for her.