Hyderabad temple takes down its Dasarā Rāma statue at Basheerbagh after VHP's "Sriram Chowk" call; BJP says it will not be forgiven
Officials call it the routine end of a festival installation; the VHP and BJP call it a capitulation, and the fight is really about the junction's name.
- ThePrint (PTI)
- South First
- The Week
The management committee of the Kanaka Durgā temple at Basheerbagh in Hyderabad removed a large statue of Lord Rāma from the crossroads in the early hours of Saturday, setting off a political row, PTI reported. The statue had been installed for the temple's Navarātri festivities, which ended on 20 October, according to South First.
Official sources told PTI that taking the statue down after Dasarā is routine. South First and The Week reported that the removal was carried out at the direction of civic authorities, reportedly after a complaint from Majlis Bachao Tehreek leader Amjed Ullah Khan, who alleged the statue had been put up without civic permission.
The complaint followed an X post on 19 October by VHP national spokesperson Ravinuthala Shashidhar urging people to call the junction "Sriram Chowk" and saying he would petition the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to recognise the name. Khan said Basheerbagh is named after Bashir-ud-Dowla Nawab Asman Jah Bahadur, prime minister of the erstwhile Hyderabad State from 1887 to 1894, and asked under what law a party could rename a public road.
Police were deployed in large numbers at the crossroads as the statue was loaded onto a truck. Telangana BJP president N. Ramchander Rao said people "will neither forget nor forgive" the Congress government, and compared the removal to pressure in 1949 to remove the Rām Lallā idol in Ayodhya.
Former corporator Akula Srivani called it "cowardice" on the part of the police and the government and alleged that authorities were yielding to pressure, The Week reported. Shashidhar said a 108-foot idol would be installed at the temple in future, and that several towns in Telangana, including Hyderabad, would regain their old names.
Key data
Navarātri festivities ended 20 Oct; statue removed early on 24 Oct. VHP renaming post on 19 Oct. VHP promises a 108 ft idol. Bashir-ud-Dowla was prime minister of Hyderabad State from 1887 to 1894.
Why it matters
A routine post-festival removal has become a test of how Hindu festival imagery may occupy public space in Telangana, and of who gets to name a city's landmarks. The 108-foot idol pledge suggests the dispute will return.
GK: did you know?
The Rām Lallā idol appeared inside the Babri structure in Ayodhya on the night of 22 to 23 December 1949; the Supreme Court's 2019 verdict in M. Siddiq v. Mahant Suresh Das later awarded the site for a temple.
