Hyderabad, March 14: As people from all walks of life made a beeline for the Tank Bund to participate in the ‘padayatra’ organised by the Jana Chaitanya Vedika (JCV), emotions began swelling high.
The rally was organised to seek pardon from the iconic leaders and poets of Andhra Pradesh whose statues were vandalised on March 10. Labelling the day on which 17 of the 26 statues of the leaders and poets that stood along the Tank Bund road were vandalised by protesters as a ‘dark day’, many who gathered there said March 10 would remain a blot in the history.
“It is something that has made the Telugu people droop their heads in shame,” said a youngster. The ‘padayatra’ was aimed as one that would seek pardon from all those souls whose statues were disfigured.
Several Telugu scholars, poets, intellectuals and political leaders participated in the ‘padayatra’ and paid homage to the personalities.
“We offered tributes and sought apologies for the vandalism, at the feet of the statues,” said Parakala Prabhakar, former spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Praja Rajyam Party. “If 10 lakh bulls were to march down the Tank Bund, they would not cause harm to statues of the great personalities,” said poet and lyricist, Jonnavithula Ramalingeswara Rao.
“We have nothing to do with the demand for a separate State, but our concern is the vandalism and disrespect to the statues of legends who are a property of the nation,” said Telugu poet and scholar Garikapati Narasimha Rao.
JCV state president V Lakshman Reddy, social activist T Lakshminarayana and others garlanded the statue of BR Ambedkar at the beginning of the Tank Bund before embarking on the ‘padayatra’ throughout the stretch of the road.
Reddy reiterated the demand that all the statues should be restored and re-installed and that the cost should be borne by those found guilty of wreaking the damage.
–Agencies