Telangana govt removes unauthorised Ram statue from Basheerbagh, BJP dubs it ‘anti-Hindu’

A statue of Lord Ram installed at Basheerbagh crossroads in Hyderabad for Dasara celebrations was removed by the  Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, on October 24, Saturday, amid heavy police deployment. The statue was unauthorisedly installed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) along with demands to rename the crossroads as Sriram Chowk, triggering a controversy. 

The statue of the Hindu deity had been installed near the Kanaka Durga temple as part of its Navaratri festivities. However, following the objections raised by Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) spokesperson Amjed Ullah Khan, the temple authorities removed the statue and loaded it onto a truck as directed by the civic authorities.

The dispute began after VHP national spokesperson Ravinuthala Shashidhar, who is also general secretary of the Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi, called for the junction to be renamed. In a post on X on October 19, he wrote: “No longer Bashir Bagh, from today it is Sriram Chowk (sic),” and urged people to use the proposed name in their addresses.

Amjed Ullah Khan questioned both the renaming demand and the installation of the large statue at the junction. He also reminded that Basheerbagh was named after Bashir-ud-Dowla Nawab Asman Jah Bahadur, who served as Prime Minister of the erstwhile Hyderabad State from 1887 to 1894.

Protesting the decision of the GHMC, BJP Telangana social media unit said that the removal of the unauthorised statue exposed the Congress government’s “anti-Hindu mindset”.

“Removing the idol of Prabhu Shri Ram, installed by Hindu Organizations on the auspicious occasion of Dusshera near Basheerbagh Temple, Hyderabad is a direct insult to millions of devotees. From Uttar Pradesh to Bengal, political arrogance has always been crushed by the people. Telangana will neither forgive nor stay silent,” they wrote.

Similarly, BJP state president N Ramchander Rao criticised the state government, saying people would “neither forget nor forgive” it over the removal. In a post on X, he compared the incident to the removal of the Ram Lalla idol in Ayodhya in 1949 and said the Congress would face political consequences in Telangana.

Meanwhile, the VHP general secretary said that a 108-foot-tall statue would be installed at the temple in the future. He also said Hyderabad and other towns in the state would eventually regain their “former” names.