The popular Alai Balai program was held at Jala Vihar in Hyderabad today.
The program was organized by Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya's daughter Vijayalaxmi.
Dattatreya used to hold the program every year before being elevated to Governor.
Several prominent persons of the country and state including Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Himachal Pradesh Governor Rajendra Viswanath, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, state ministers Mahmood Ali and T Srinivas Yadav, MLC K Kavitha, Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan, Bharat Biotech Chairman Krishna Eella and others took part in the program.
Vice President Venkaiah Naidu performed pooja at the Jammu tree and to goddess Durga. The Telangana Governor then inaugurated the cultural programs. She also danced along other women after inaugurating the events.
The guests at the event greeted each other instead of hugging each other, keeping in view the Covid protocol.
Addressing the gathering on the occasion, Venkaiah Naidu said that the main objective of the Alai Balai program was to bring all people onto a single platform irrespective of their caste, religion, language and regional feelings.
Vijayalaxmi said that the event was aimed not at enabling the guests to taste the Telangana cuisine but at ensuring that everybody was treated equally. She said that the program had brought all political parties and their leaders onto one platform for the achievement of a separate Telangana state, and that Dattatreya was continuing to hold the program to transition the Telangana cultural legacy to the future generations of the state.
Vice President Venkaiah Naidu felicitated several guests on the occasion, including Bharat Biotech chairman Krishna Ella, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories chairman Prasad Reddy, JSP president Pawan Kalyan, the chairman of the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology Dr. Nageswar Reddy, Biological-E MD Mahiima Datla and Movie Artists Association (MAA) president Manchu Vishnu.