The farewell meeting organized by Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in the honour of outgoing Governor E S L Narasimhan and his wife Vimala Narasimhan at Pragati Bhavan on Saturday raised many eyebrows.
First of all, hosting lunch and felicitation for the Governor at KCR’s residence itself was questioned by critics, as it was not clear whether it was an official function or a personal function organized by KCR.
If it is an official function, Narasimhan is not supposed to go to the residence of the chief minister in the capacity of a Governor, as he is No. 1 by virtue of his position and protocol.
If KCR wanted to felicitate Narasimhan, he should have arranged the function at a neutral venue like Jubilee Hall or even at Raj Bhavan.
Secondly, if it is a government farewell function, KCR should have invited the opposition leaders as well, including PCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Union minister G Kishan Reddy and Governor-designate of Himachal Pradesh Bandaru Dattatreya.
But KCR confined it to only the TRS leaders. And there is no proper information as to who is being invited for the felicitation function. Ironically, even for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi leaders, there was no proper invitation.
There was no entry for the MLAs and ex-MLAs, except of course for KCR’s son K T Rama Rao and daughter K Kavitha.
Not knowing this, Ramayampet MLA and former Deputy Speaker of the assembly Padma Devender Reddy came to Pragati Bhavan, but she was not allowed to enter the premises. She had to beat the retreat with humiliation.
At the same time, minister Talasani Srinivasa Yadav’s son and TRS candidate for the recent Lok Sabha election from Secunderabad, Talasani Sai Kiran royally drove his car into the Pragati Bhavan premises, even as Padma Devender Goud was returning. Nobody knows how Sai Kiran could get the permission.
Many other TRS leaders including ministers, besides advisors Tankasala Ashok and G R Reddy, police commissioner Anurag Sharma and even assembly secretary Narasimha Charyulu and several IAS, IPS, IFS officers along with their spouses attended the meeting.