The Telangana Rashtra Samithi government on Friday averted a major embarrassment to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan by avoiding references to controversial issues of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) in her address to the joint session of state legislative assembly and legislative council on the first day of the budget session on Friday.
Normally, the Governor reads out in the assembly whatever speech the state cabinet approves. But Tamilisai was till recently a hardcore Bharatiya Janata Party leader, heading the party unit in Tamil Nadu before she was appointed as Governor.
Since the BJP is strongly campaigning in favour of CAA, NRC and NPR, Tamilisai would naturally support the same. But since she is now Governor, she has to speak the language of the TRS government which is opposing these acts and rules.
Otherwise, she would have to ignore the paragraphs referring to the CAA and others, or like her Kerala counterpart Arif Mohammad Khan did, should record a protest note while reading out the prepared speech of the TRS government. Either way, it would be an embarrassment for her.
So, in order to save her from such an embarrassment, TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao ensured that the words CAA, NRC or NPR are not there in Tamilisai’s speech copy.
Instead, there are indirect references to the same, stating that the TRS government would act tough against the attempts to create communal tensions and suppress such attempts with an iron hand.
“Telangana is known for its Ganga-Jamuna Tehzeeb. It is the symbol of communal harmony. People from all faiths are living here peacefully with harmony for centuries together. Let me declare here that my Government is fully committed to uphold the unity among its people and to protect the secular fabric of the State,” she said.
However, soon after her speech, the Business Advisory Committee of the state assembly decided that the assembly pass a resolution against the CAA, NRC and NPR during the ongoing budget session.
The chief minister himself made the proposal at the BAC meeting and it was supported by the Congress and the MIM.
