- Tuesday, March 11, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
IN an incident which has earned the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government of the southern Indian state of Telangana wide criticism, four civic body workers of the state’s Bellampally Municipal Commission were given suspension letters for not showing up at a party given in the honour of municipal minister KT Rama Rao, a heavyweight leader of Telangana and the son of the state’s chief minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao.
The event was organised at the Bellampally government hospital by the local municipal authorities on Sunday (24).
According to a report by India Today, the municipal commissioner issued a notice to the four employees the next day (25), seeking their explanation over their absence within 24 hours of receiving it, failing which disciplinary action would be initiated against them.
“With reference to the birthday celebrations of Hon’ble Municipal Minister Sri K Taraka Rama Rao were held on 24.07.2022 at Bellampally Government Hospital at 10.00 am. All the office staff were informed to attend through WhatsApp message. But the message was ignored, and the memo was issued due to poor attendance,” the note, read by India Today TV, said.
“In this connection, so why action should not be taken against you for not attending the above mentioned event. You can reply to this memo within (24) hours after touching it. Otherwise, disciplinary action will be taken against you and your superiors will be informed if you do not respond to this memo (sic),” it said.
The suspended employees alleged that they were sacked without being given an opportunity to defend themselves. They also questioned how a minister’s birthday celebration was part of their job.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) slammed the state government over the incident and called Rao, who is popularly called ‘KTR’, a “prince”.
“Govt of Telangana has issued a memo to employees asking them to explain why they didn’t attend Prince KTR’s birthday bash on 24th Jul. Last we knew, Telangana still had a government that was elected to serve people or has it transformed into a monarchy, fiefdom of KCR family?” Amit Malviya, the BJP IT cell chief, tweeted.
Govt of Telangana has issued a memo to employees asking them to explain why they didn’t attend Prince KTR’s birthday bash on 24th Jul. Last we knew, Telangana still had a government that was elected to serve people or has it transformed into a monarchy, fiefdom of KCR family? pic.twitter.com/GJk9use5IX
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) July 29, 2022
The TRS denied that any birthday celebration was held at the government hospital for Rao and added that it was just a plantation drive.
“KTR had given a call to the state and party cadres that his birthday should not be celebrated since the state is seeing devastating floods. So he hasn’t celebrated his birthday. This document which Amit Malviya and the BJP are trying to politicize is a plantation programme because, for any occasion in Telangana, our ritual is to hold a plantation programme which our chief minister started to increase the green cover of the state. The Bellampally municipality had given a call to its employees to come for this plantation programme,” Krishank, a spokesperson of the ruling TRS, was quoted as saying by Today TV.
