Telangana In India Due to Patel: Rajnath Singh

Union home minister Rajnath Singh today said that the Telangana region was merged into the Indian union due to efforts of the then union home minister Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel.

Addressing a mammoth public meeting in Nizamabad town organised for September 17 which the BJP is celebrating as Telangana Liberation Day, christened by the party also as "Sankalp Day", Singh said that September 17 was an important day. It was on September 17, 1948, that the Telangana region was merged into the Indian union thanks to Patel, who took on the might of the Razakars and the Nizam's armed forces.

It is well-known that KCR refusing to observe September 17 as Telangana Liberation Day, going back on his word to do that in the pre-Telangana days, is a key pressure point that the BJP is using against the TRS. KCR is most likely wary of antagonizing the significant (13%) Muslim population in the state, and the BJP is keen to capitalize on that, by portraying KCR as pro-Muslim to the 85% Hindu population. While Muslims are believed to usually vote as a block for a candidate / party making accommodative noises towards the community, and in large numbers, Hindus are reputed to vote more on caste lines than on religious lines, and do not vote in large numbers, making the Muslim vote strategically important despite the seemingly small percentage.

It is with these calculations in mind that the BJP may be trying to polarize the state over religion and thereby consolidate the Hindu vote using the Telangana Liberation Day as a tool. And it's small wonder then that Rajnath Singh himself came down to the state for a public meeting.

Singh also mouthed platitudes about how India was today a much stronger nation in the world, and how the Modi government was providing a transparent and corruption-free government to the people of the country.

The meeting was attended among others by union minister Hansraj Ahir, the BJP's national general secretary Muralidhar Rao, the party's state unit president Dr K Laxman, Indrasena Reddy, MLC Ramachander Rao, and MLAs N V S S Prabhakar and Nagam Janardhan Reddy.