Veteran Congress leader and former MP V Hanumantha Rao, who had recently
gone on a fast unto death demanding that the TRS government install a statue of social reformer B R Ambedkar at Punjagutta immediately, today ended his indefinite fast following the intervention of Telangana AICC State in-charge Manickam Tagore.
Tagore offered the senior leader lemon juice after requesting the former to end his fast.
Speaking on the occasion, Tagore said that the Congress would continue to fight for the installation of the statue.
He criticised Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's treatment of the matter as being objectionable, and added, "VHR is a senior leader and an elderly man of 70. Though I have been able to convince him to end his hunger strike out of concern for his health, the CM's apathetic treatment of this simple demand shows him in poor light. His actions have been greatly insulting to one of India's most well-loved and widely respected personalities. I would like to add here that the end of VHR's fast does not mark the end of our struggle to get Babasaheb Ambedkar's statue installed at Punjagutta. Our entire party stands by VHR and will fight by his side till the statue is put up."
The AICC in-charge also took the chance to assail Y S Sharmila for not taking up the issue with the KCR regime and asked her to do so.
This tussle over the Ambedkar statue is not an old one. In January last year, too, VHR had demanded that the statue be put up at the earliest.
He had alleged that the Telangana government had hurt all people of the backward castes by "desecrating" the statue, and that he would observe a fast-unto-death and commit suicide if the Ambedkar statue was not restored to its original place before February 5, 2020. Then in December 2020, he had again demanded that the state government reinstall the statue before Ambedkar's next birth anniversary (April 14, 2021) and threatened to go on a fast unto death if his demand was not fulfilled.