N T Rama Rao

Hyderabad, Nov. 21: Three decades ago, N.T. Rama Rao had used the slogan of Telugu pride to defeat the Congress in united Andhra Pradesh, exploiting an alleged snub by Rajiv Gandhi to then chief minister T. Anjaiah.

Now, an attempt to attach “Seemandhra leader” NTR’s name to a part of an airport that bears Rajiv’s name appears to have hurt Telangana’s pride.

The Telangana Assembly today passed a resolution against the Centre’s move to name the domestic terminal of Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport after the late Telugu Desam Party founder.

It demanded “status quo”, citing NTR’s Seemandhra origins and the Centre’s failure to consult Telangana.

Desam MP and Union civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju is being seen as the force behind yesterday’s order which, however, clarified that the airport as a whole would continue to carry Rajiv’s name. The announcement was made by Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu at Vijayawada.

“How can the Centre and Andhra decide without consulting Telangana?” asked chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

“If they want, they can name Vizag or Tirupati or Vijayawada after NTR.”

He said the House was not trying to belittle a great leader and actor like NTR but wanted the Centre to consult the state before taking any action on infrastructure or locations in Telangana.

Desam leader E. Dayakar Rao, however, said that if NTR was an outsider, so was Rajiv. He said both names should be scrapped if the state government objected to NTR’s, and the airport should be named after former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.

The BJP supported him but, to the suggested name of Narasimha Rao, added that of tribal freedom-fighter Komuram Bheem as another possible alternative.

The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen provided its own twist. Akbaruddin Owaisi said the airport should be named after Hazrat Sarfuddin Baba as it stands on 3,000 acres of wakf land where the Baba’s dargah was located.