Andhra Pradesh - Others   

TRS man partakes Congress tirtham'

S. Ramu

SAVOURING TIME: Tippana Vijayasimha Reddy, TRS district president, accepting Congress `tirtham' at a function at Miryalaguda in Nalgonda district on Monday. - PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

MIRYALAGUDA (NALGONDA): To "accept `tirtham' (holy water)" of a particular party is an idiomatic expression in Telugu that means to join the party. Repala Srinivas, chairman, Andhra Pradesh State Trading Corporation, created a flutter by literally offering "Congress tirtham" to the Telangana Rastra Samithi district unit president Tippana Vijayasimha Reddy, who joined the party at a public meeting here on Monday.

Mr. Reddy, a former Congressman, took out a rally from his house in the housing board colony to Rajiv Bhavan, the Congress party office in the town. Then he met Home Minister K. Jana Reddy, Zilla Parishad Chairperson Keetha Laxmamma, Repala Srinivas and other Congress leaders before proceeding towards the Rajiv Gandhi statue. Mr. Vijayasimha Reddy was the first leader to garland the statute.

Later the leaders gathered on a dais erected to mark the joining of TRS cadres in the Congress. When the leaders were getting ready to present the traditional `Congress khanduvas' for the TRS leaders, Mr. Srinivas came out with a `special announcement.'

To the surprise of the Congress and TRS cadres gathered on the dais, he announced that he was willing to offer `Congress tirtham' to the TRS leader. Even as people were puzzling over this announcement, one of his supporters brought a plastic mug with tri-colour painted around it on to the dais.

The APSTC chairman offered three spoons of tirtham to Mr. Vijayasimha Reddy, who humbly accepted it. As devotees do in the temples in tune with the established customs, the latter gently applied the remaining tirtham on his head. Later Mr. Srinivas, known for his innovative protest techniques, poured all the tirtham in Mr.Vijayasimha Reddy's mouth.

This tirtham episode sent the people who had gathered there into peels of laughter. The otherwise serious-looking Mr. Jana Reddy also could not control his laughter. "Mr. Srinivas is good at stealing the show by resorting to such amusing actions. Mr. Tippana must be that he did not prepare the Congress tirtham by mixing the three colours," a politician commented.

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