Kishan Reddy finds two ceremonies, calls it avoidance
The BJP leader’s charge overlooks official September 17 events held by both Telangana governments under different names.
The same date was observed under three different official names.
Union minister G. Kishan Reddy has accused the previous BRS government and the present Congress government in Telangana of avoiding an official observance of September 17 as “Telangana Liberation Day”. He made the charge at a BJP Mahila Morcha scooter rally in Hyderabad on September 15, according to UNI. He attributed the alleged avoidance to “vote-bank politics” and pressure from AIMIM. The evidence supplied for that explanation remains absent.
The record is less dramatic and more inconvenient. The BRS government officially observed September 17 as Telangana National Integration Day in 2022 and 2023, with state programmes and flag hoisting. The Congress government held Telangana Praja Palana Dinotsavam in 2024 and 2025. The BJP-led Centre, meanwhile, used Hyderabad Liberation Day from 2022. Three labels, one date — and a familiar political quarrel over who gets to name history.
AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi did publicly advocate National Integration Day in 2022. That establishes advocacy, not proof that AIMIM dictated the BRS decision or caused the Congress government’s later terminology. Kishan Reddy’s charge is therefore an allegation, while the ceremonies are documented. The BJP has found a naming dispute and promoted it as an absence of history. September 17, rather stubbornly, kept being observed.