Hyderabad, Sep 16 (IANS) : Vice-President of India C.P. Radhakrishnan will be hoisting the National Flag at Secunderabad Parade Grounds here on Thursday to mark Hyderabad Liberation Day.
Vice President C.P. Radhakrishnan will be the chief guest at this year’s event. He will review the parade by the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF).
Telangana Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla, Central ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, G. Kishan Reddy, Bandi Sanjay Kumar and others will attend the event, which will also feature cultural programmes.
It was on September 17, 1948, that the then Hyderabad State was annexed into the Indian Union.
For the fifth consecutive year, the Centre is organising Hyderabad Liberation Day celebrations.
Like the last few years, the Central and Telangana governments will celebrate the day with different themes.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy will unfurl the National Flag at the main event to be held at the Public Garden in Hyderabad.
For the third year in a row, the state government is celebrating it as ‘Telangana Praja Palana Dinotsavam (people’s governance day)’. State ministers, government advisors, and key representatives will hoist the National Flag and take the salute at the official celebrations in all 32 district headquarters.
The National Flag will also be unfurled at all government offices, urban local bodies, and gram panchayats.
While the earlier Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government celebrated September 17 as ‘National Integration Day’ in 2022 and 2023, Congress, which came to power in December 2023, decided to celebrate the occasion as ‘Praja Palana Dinotsavam’.
In 2022, the Union Ministry of Culture started organising the celebrations in Hyderabad on September 17.
In 2024, the BJP-led government at the Centre decided to celebrate September 17 as Hyderabad Liberation Day. It issued a gazette notification, mentioning that Hyderabad did not get independence for 13 months after India’s Independence on August 15, 1947 and continued to be under the Nizam’s rule.
In 2022 and 2023, Union Home Minister Amit Shah unfurled the national flag at Hyderabad Liberation Day celebrations. Union Coal and Mines Minister Kishan Reddy led the celebrations in 2024, while Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was the chief guest in 2025.
The BJP has long been demanding an official celebration of September 17 as Hyderabad Liberation Day.
Earlier, in united Andhra Pradesh and later in Telangana, the party used to organise protests demanding that the government officially organise the celebrations.
Successive governments, however, avoided official celebrations in view of the objections from Muslim organisations, which claimed that a massacre took place in the name of ‘Police Action’ as ‘Operation Polo’ was popularly known.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) led by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi and other parties strongly opposed the celebrations on the grounds that the entire India has one Independence Day.
Accusing the BJP of giving communal colour to the issue, then Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao in 2023 decided to celebrate September 17 as National Integration Day.
AIMIM also changed its strategy and celebrated it as National Integration Day.
Last year, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy invited Union Ministers Amit Shah, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Kishan Reddy, and Minister of State Bandi Sanjay Kumar to attend ‘Praja Palana Dinotsavam’ to celebrate the anniversary of the “arrival and heralding of democracy on Hyderabad soil”.
The BJP leaders, however, rejected the invitation. Kishan Reddy wrote that he “cannot be part of an insincere ritual that blatantly attempts to erase the truth from the people”.
