Hyderabad: The Congress government in Telangana has decided to celebrate September 17, the day erstwhile Hyderabad State was integrated into the Indian Union in 1948, as the “Telangana Praja Palana Day” (people’s governance day).
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy will lead the state in celebrating the day by hoisting the national flag at Public Gardens in the heart of the city. The national flag will be hoisted at all government offices, urban local bodies and gram panchayats on September 17. Ministers and other dignitaries will lead the celebrations in the district headquarters.
By deciding to celebrate September 17 as Praja Palana Day, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has reversed the decision of previous government of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), which celebrated the day as National Integration Day in 2022 and 2023 in an apparent move to counter BJP which has been celebrating Hyderabad Liberation Day every year.
Revanth Reddy has invited Union Home Minister Amit Shah to attend the Telangana Praja Palana Day programme as a special guest, to celebrate the anniversary of ‘the arrival and heralding of democracy on Hyderabad soil.’
CM Reddy also wrote letters to Union Ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and G. Kishan Reddy, and Minister of State Bandi Sanjay Kumar, inviting them to be guests at the program.
In March 2024, the BJP government at the Centre decided to celebrate September 17 as Hyderabad Liberation Day. In a move aimed at reaping electoral benefit in Lok Sabha polls in Telangana by raking up the controversial issue, it issued a gazette notification in this regard.
The Ministry of Home Affairs mentioned in the notification that Hyderabad did not get independence for 13 months of the Independence of India on 15th August, 1947 and was under Nizam’s rule. “The region got liberated from Nizam’s Rule on 17th September, 1948, after police action namely ‘Operation Polo’. Whereas, there has been a demand from the people of the region that 17th September may be celebrated as Hyderabad Liberation Day. Now, in order to remember martyrs who liberated Hyderabad and to infuse the flame of patriotism in the minds of the youth, the Government of India has decided to celebrate the 17th day of September every year as “Hyderabad Liberation Day”,” reads the notification issued on March 12.
The BJP has long been demanding an official celebration of September 17 as Hyderabad Liberation Day. Earlier in united Andhra Pradesh and later in Telangana, the party used to organise protests demanding the government to officially organise the celebrations.
Successive governments, however, avoided official celebrations in view of the objections from Muslim organizations which say that a massacre took place in the name of police action. AIMIM and other parties strongly opposed celebrations also on the ground that the entire India has one Independence Day.
Barring BJP, other parties had been celebrating September 17 as Hyderabad Merger Day.
In 2022, the Union Ministry of Culture started organising the celebrations in Hyderabad on September 17. Union Home Minister Amit Shah hoisted the national flag and reviewed the parade by contingents of paramilitary forces in Hyderabad both in 2022 and 2023.
In a move to counter the BJP’s attempts at communal polarisation over the issue, then Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao decided to celebrate September 17 as National Integration Day. AIMIM also changed its strategy and celebrated it as National Integration Day.
The BJP, in its manifesto for the Telangana Assembly elections last year, had promised celebration of September 17 as Hyderabad Liberation Day. The party had made it an issue in the election and at every election rally, Amit Shah had targeted both Congress and BRS for not celebrating Hyderabad Liberation Day due to vote bank politics. He had accused both parties of being scared of Owaisi.
