Telangana urges Centre not to name domestic terminal after NTR

All parties, except TDP and BJP, back resolution to protest Centre's move name airport after late leader

The Telangana State Legislative Assembly on Friday adopted a resolution urging the Centre to maintain status quo with regard to the nomenclature of  Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.

The House passed the resolution in protest against the Centre issuing orders on Wednesday naming the domestic terminal of the airport after NT Rama Rao (NTR), former chief minister and the founder of Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

“The Assembly objects to the manner in which the central government took the decision without even consulting the Telangana government,” the resolution stated requesting the Centre to “reconsider its decision and continue status quo”.

Legislators of all parties, barring those belonging to the TDP and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), supported the resolution. Chief minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao, said the Centre’s “unilateral action” was an insult to Telangana.

“Why should the name of a person belonging to a neighbouring state be given to an airport located in Telangana. There are four airports in Andhra Pradesh and we have no objection if they name all of them after NT Rama Rao. We have great leaders in Telangana. If the Centre want to change the name, it should have named it after a Telangana leader. The Centre’s decision is not acceptable,” the chief minister said.

Leaders of the Congress, CPI, CPM, Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) and YSR Congress Party have also expressed similar views.

The issue rocked the House as soon as it assembled today with Congress legislator T Jeevan Reddy raising it through an adjournment motion. “Naming the domestic terminal after NT Rama Rao indicates the continuing dominance of Seemandhra (Andhra and Rayalaseema) people over Telangana,” he said.

Prior to the setting up of the greenfield international airport at Shamshabad by the GMR group, the domestic terminal of the old Begumpet airport was named after NT Rama Rao, while the international airport was christened as Rajiv Gandhi International Airport .

The new airport project was initiated prior to 2004 when the TDP was in power. The party wanted to retain the same names for the new airport. However, the TDP lost power to the Congress in 2004 and former chief minister, YS Rajasekhara Reddy, did not retain NTR’s name when its operations were launched in March 2008.

The TDP protested at that time and vowed to retain the name of NTR for the domestic terminal once it came back to power in the state. TDP’s Ashok Gajapati Raju being the Union civil aviation minister at present made things easy in this regard.