The grand inaugural of the World Telugu Conference and the hospitality for the delegates won praise for the Telangana government and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. But the delegates alleged that invitation not being extended to the neighbouring Telugu State Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, did not go down well with many.
Not just the delegates from Andhra Pradesh, but even locals agreed that it marred the otherwise elegantly-executed event that is meant to celebrate language, literature and culture of all Telugu people.
G. Venkatasai Prasad, a Telugu Pundit from Kadapa, recalled that Mr. Naidu had invited his Telangana counterpart when he laid foundation for Amaravati capital city. It would have certainly enhanced the prestige of the conference had an invitation been extended to Mr. Naidu, he felt. Another glaring shortcoming was that no appropriate representation was given to poets and writers from Andhra in the literary events as 80% of them were from Telangana. In the last 2012 WTC at Tirupati, equal representation was given to Telangana poets and writers, he said.
Mr. Prasad said the governments should also focus on formulating plans to implement Telugu in education and administration. The inaugural function should have set the motion for the time-bound action plan.
Muralidhar, a retired ISRO scientist, said the WTC was inspirational and it caught the attention of all Telugus. This would certainly motivate Telugus to use and speak in their mother tongue extensively. Telugu language and literature has several great poets and it would not be possible to cover all. One should not take it amiss if more focus was on Telangana-origin poets and writers this time, he said.
