CHENNAI: P Muralidhar Rao, national general secretary of the BJP, extolled the virtues of integration and of the importance of being proud of one’s heritage, culture and language even as Indians look to a larger national identity.
Delivering a lecture titled ‘National Politics: Prospects and Challenges in Telugu States’, Rao stated that despite the division of the Telugu speaking State into two, the Telugu language cannot be divided and went on to add that all the languages of India such as Hindi, Telugu, Tamil should be celebrated equally.
“That is true nationalism according to me,” he said.
Pointing out that people were opting for national parties in State elections, he said that this trend was evident in Tamil Nadu as well as Andhra Pradesh.
Extolling the virtues of Telugu speakers he said that the community’s participation in and contribution to the fields of technology, science and economics across the world is excellent. He exhorted Telugu speaking people to actively participate in politics as well.
Taking a dig at the Congress party while delivering the speech at the Kamarajar auditorium in Teynampet, he said, “the Congress party works on the whims of one family. Their workers do not know where their party or their leader is going,” he said. Family involvement in politics as seen in Congress was being repeated by all regional parties like DMK and had hence led to degeneration of politics.
A leader like NT Rama Rao would have been a greater figure had he belonged to a national party, Rao said.
TN BJP president Tamizhisai Soundararajan said she was overwhelmed by the turnout and this was an indication of the changing political reality. “Telugus and Tamils will walk together in changing the politics of the state which will be of a new kind,” she said.