Nothing is greater than Gandhism: Ghazal Srinivas

Tirupati: Eminent ghazal singer ‘Ghazal’ Srinivas inspired the hundreds of students, teachers and local people who gathered at ‘Simha Garjana’, organised by Samaikya Andhra Parirakshana Samithi at Municipal Office Circle here on Tuesday. He encouraged the activists with his ghazals and the audience was impressed with his inspiring words.

Addressing the gathering, he said he guessed the threat of the division of State a week earlier when he was in New Delhi in the last week of July. After seeing the political lobbying and serious meetings of Congress leaders of the State with the senior leaders of Congress party in Delhi, he smelt the decision of Congress high command, he said.

His assessment came true with the announcement of CWC and UPA partners on July 30, he pointed. Upset with these developments, before the announcement, he returned to Hyderabad and wrote a poem stressing the unity of Telugu people and the greatness of Andhra Pradesh, he pointed out. He further said no philosophy is greater than the Gandhian philosophy and the past history in many countries proved this. The strength in peaceful agitations is the huge presence of people at Simha Garjana, he pointed.

He stressed that the Samaikyandhra agitators should have more patience than any one, because it needs the unity of all, including the people who were strong believers of separation of the State. The Samaikyandhra people should tell the need for the unity to Telangana people and to bring lot of awareness among them, he said.

His mother was also on a two-day fast demanding the unity of Telugu people and unified State at her age of 76 years, he said. The ongoing agitations in Seemandhra regions are like the agitations during the independence struggle, he pointed. Common people realised the problems with the division of the State and were participating voluntarily in the protest for the sake of unity of entire Telugu speaking people, he said. Students from various schools arrived at the Simha Garjana venue in large numbers in school uniforms and stayed for over two hours. The SAPS convener Dr. Sudha Rani and president Dr. K Balasubramanyam and general secretary N. Raja Reddy and many others of SAPS felicitated Ghazal Srinivas with memento.

All associations supporting a unified State came under one umbrella in organising a massive rally in Tirupati on Tuesday. Though there were several groups in Tirupati organising agitations individually for the common cause every day, the renowned Ghazal singer Ghazal Srinivas brought unity among them through the massive rally.

The APNGOs gave a call to several associations to take part in the massive rally from Town Club Circle to Telugu Talli statue. With this call, more than 13,000 students from the schools and colleges took part in the rally on Tuesday and garlanded Telugu Talli statue. The rally passed through Prakasam Road, Gandhi Road, G Car Street, Railway Station, Bus Station and Ambedkar statue.

The employees’ of revenue, commercial taxes, treasury, municipal office, electricity and TTD departments took part in the rally. The professors, lecturers, contract lecturers, teachers, nursing staff, doctors and university students also actively participated. The private colleges located on the outskirts of Tirupati arranged buses to this programme.

All busy roads were filled with Samaikyandhra supporters. The new song of Ghazal Srinivas attracted the people at Telugu Talli statue. Irrespective of politics, all politicians took part in this massive rally and addressed the gathering at Telugu Talli statue.

The traffic came to a grinding halt on these routes, while the rally was proceeding towards Telugu Talli statue. The local people, impressed with this rally, participated in thousands. Several local Samaikyandhra leaders said that though the agitations were taking place for the past 20 days, such huge gathering was not witnessed, and this may give a morale boost to the young generation.

The police were deployed in large numbers at vital points to control the mob and to prevent any untoward incident. Ghazal Srinivas inspired the Samaikyandhra supporters with his songs and effective speech.