The Andhra Pradesh government’s proposal to rename the NTR University of Health Sciences(NTRUHS) after former Chief Minister late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy has met with stiff resistance in Kadapa, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s home district.
Leaders across the social and political spectrums have demanded that the government drop the move.
TDP Politburo member and Kadapa parliamentary constituency candidate R. Sreenivasa Reddy said the move reflected YSRCP’s hatred towards N.T. Rama Rao.
“The Chief Minister has usurped ₹450 crore from the university’s coffers, leaving no funds even for its convocation, and has now stolen its name,” he fumed.
Former Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy wondered how YSR could fit in the name of the university that was established by late NTR way back in 1986.
“It was in 1996 that the then Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu named it after its founder. Even YSR would not have appreciated the move to rename the university after him, he said, urging the YSRC government to think beyond undoing the good work done by its predecessors.
TDP State Organising Secretary Balisetty Hariprasad led a team of party activists in performing ‘paalabhishekam’ to the statue of N.T. Rama Rao in Kadapa.
“YSR had nothing to his credit by the time the age-old institution was established,” he said.
In Kamalapuram, State Secretary Kasibhatla Satya Sainath Sharma staged a rasta roko at Ambedkar Circle.
The ‘hurried and hushed’ manner in which the issue was taken up online in the cabinet meeting shows the government’s mala fide intention, he said.
Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee(APCC) working president N. Thulasi Reddy dubbed the move as ‘unethical’ and ‘unfortunate’.
“In spite of having numerous schemes named after YSR, why is it still necessary for the Chief Minister to rename NTRUHS too after YSR?”, he wondered, appealing to him to shun nurturing such ‘extreme thoughts’.
BJP State spokesperson G. Bhanuprakash Reddy condemned the move and urged the rulers to leave a strong imprint on the hearts of the people, rather than taking such cosmetic steps.
