Congress dividing people instead of State: Venkaiah

Hyderabad: Finding fault with the way in which the state bifurcation issue was being handled, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu has charged the Congress party of fueling tensions and creating barriers between people of different regions.

Instead of carrying out the division process in a smooth manner, Congress has been trying to divide the people along regional lines, he fumed.

He was speaking at the daylong South India workshop on ‘Statue of Unity’ held at a city hotel on Sunday. Naidu appealed to the Centre to look into the concerns of the Seemandhra sections. In his characteristic style, the BJP leader remarked that they (referring to Seemandhras) were very much Indians and not Pakistanis.

He recalled how the former deputy prime minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel strived for unity and oneness of the nation. The one-day workshop focused on mobilisation of iron materials for construction of statue of unity in Gujarat. Naidu, the chief guest for the progamme said that the need of the hour was to remember immense contributions made by Sardar Patel. He appealed to people from South India to take part in the movement in a big way.

Dr K Laxman, the south India in-charge of the ‘statue of unity’ movement informed that such workshops would be conducted at the state level and district levels in all the souhtern states in coming weeks.

Four senior ministers from the Gujarat government namely Saurabh Patel, Babubhai Bokhiria, Pradeep Singh Jadeja and Rajnikant Patel besides stakeholders from four southern states- Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh along with three union territories-Pondicherry, Lakshwadeep and Andaman and Nicobar Islands attended the workshop.