Bandi Sanjay Kumar flays KCR for not honouring promise of erecting 125-ft Ambedkar statue

Hyderabad: State BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Sunday castigated Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for failing to fulfil his promise of erecting 125-ft statue of Dr B R Ambedkar here even after six years.

The Karimnagar MP, who along with other party leaders, inspected the works of the Ambedkar Memorial near NTR Ghat, told the media that on April 14, 2016 KCR had announced installation of 125-ft statue of Dr Ambedkar in the heart of State capital.

"KCR had also announced he would unveil the statue by Ambedkar Jayanti in 2017. But he turned a blind eye to the statue later. Since then, the CM never bothered to attend Ambedkar birth/death anniversary programmes," he fumed.

Bandi said it was only after repeated appeals by the BJP and leaders of Dalit and people's organisations on the Ambedkar statue installation, the State government announced release of Rs 146 crore on September 17, 2020. "Yet, there has been not much progress in the statue work. Nobody knows whether the work would ever be completed. There are no indications of installing the statue of even 45-ft," he bemoaned.

Bandi alleged that KCR had been cheating Dalits from the day one of taking over as CM. "Before the elections, he had promised to make a Dalit the first CM of Telangana, but soon after winning, he backtracked," he added. Later, the KCR promised to implement the SC/ST sub-plan with special funds. But he threw even this promise to wind.

On the eve of Huzurabad by-election, KCR came up with the Dalit Bandhu scheme and promised to give Rs 10 lakh to every Dalit family. "When Dalits did not believe him and voted against the TRS, despite the party spending crores, KCR conveniently ignored his promise of implementing the scheme from November 4," he pointed out. "Now, the CM is talking about re-drafting the Constitution," he said, adding that he won't be able to touch even a single page.

Bandi demanded the CM to complete the installation of Ambedkar statue as promised at the earliest and implement all promises he had made to dalits. "Otherwise, we shall take up agitation in a big way all over the State," he warned.