Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
On May 28, his 103rd birth anniversary, Telangana’s capital Hyderabad got one more statue of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (NTR).
This one is monumental—23 feet high, cast in bronze and installed at the busy Maitrivanam junction in Ameerpet, where hundreds of software coaching institutes churn out thousands of techies every year.
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While there are several NTR statues across Hyderabad and Telangana, this one’s distinction is that it has come up under the auspices of the Congress government, a party NTR had fought fervently throughout his political life, even dubbing it ‘dushta’ (evil).
NTR, following a phenomenal career in the movies, launched the TDP in 1982 and dislodged the Congress from power in undivided Andhra Pradesh in the 1983 elections. Regaining power in 1989, the Congress lost to NTR again in 1994. He passed away in 1996.
So, why did A. Revanth Reddy, a Congress chief minister, unveil ‘Congress nemesis’ NTR’s statue in the heart of Hyderabad, shower praises on the Telugu legend and place him on the same pedestal as his party’s icon Indira Gandhi? And that too 12 years after the bifurcation of Andhra.
The answer lies in the location of the statue. From the Maitrivanam circle till Patancheru on Hyderabad’s outskirts, encompassing several assembly seats, lie vast residential stretches with significant and often dominating presence of ‘Andhra settlers’. These are the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema people who—for jobs, business or livelihood—migrated and settled in Hyderabad in the decades when it was the capital of united Andhra.
Kammas, the caste group NTR and his son-in-law and Andhra chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu belong to, revere NTR like god. The Kammas, aligned with the TDP, form an influential bloc among the Andhra settlers of Hyderabad.
The Jubilee Hills assembly constituency, where the Maitrivanam statue stands, was represented by Maganti Gopinath, a Kamma, from 2014 till 2025, when he died from health complications. Maganti was elected on a TDP ticket in 2014 but switched to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) as the TDP’s influence diminished in Telangana in the post-bifurcation years.
In fact, Revanth Reddy, who himself was a TDP MLA earlier and still maintains cordial relations with Chandrababu, unveiled the NTR statue in fulfilment of a promise made during campaigning for the Jubilee Hills bypoll in November 2025. Speaking at the ceremony, attended by NTR fans and Kamma leaders in huge numbers, Reddy sought to address the questioning over a Congress chief minister unveiling the statue of NTR.
NTR’s aura, contributions to public welfare, leadership and legacy transcend caste, religion, region and language, argued Reddy, adding that NTR made the entire Telugu community proud. Describing NTR and Indira Gandhi as inspirations for his “people-centric welfare governance” in Telangana, the chief minister stated the occasion as “one of the most memorable moments of his life”.
“Indira Gandhi is a generation and NTR an era,” Reddy asserted. He attributed the rise of several top leaders in Telangana today, including former chief minister and BRS supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), to NTR’s support and encouragement. “KCR’s political rise is the ‘political bhiksha’ (charity) of NTR,” remarked Reddy.
KCR too was a TDP legislator and minister before he formed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (the original avatar of BRS) in 2001 with the single-point agenda of statehood for Telangana.
Reddy attacked BRS working president K. Taraka Rama Rao, describing him as an “impostor” and commenting that even those who were named after NTR were criticising the statue’s installation.
As the occasion let some Andhra-Telangana regional divide resurface, videos of KTR’s Jubilee Hills bypoll campaign, wherein he was promising a NTR bronze statue in the constituency if the BRS won, also circulated on social media.
Analysts attribute the Congress’s rush to install NTR’s statue to the civic body polls due this year in the capital city area, when Andhra settler and Kamma votes matter again. On the other hand, in Andhra, the TDP’s annual convention Mahanadu passed a unanimous resolution demanding the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, for NTR. Chandrababu said Bharat Ratna for NTR was a long-cherished desire of Telugus across the world.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
