The fourth death Anniversary of former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy turned into a ‘circus’ with the organisers making use of a crane to garland the larger-than-life statue with a ‘gajamala’.
They used a youngster go on the crane to pour milk as part of the ‘abhishekam’. The leaders – former MLAs Adusumilli Jayaprakash and Jaleel Khan – stood at the foot of the statue and witnessed the drama. The party activists and passers-by who witnessed the abhishekam of the tallest bronze statue of YSR, which is more then 15 feet in height, were impressed. A youngster sat in a sling hooked on to the crane and poured the milk out of a bucket. But, problems cropped up when the giant garland was lifted by the same crane and put around the neck of the statue. The stick put in the garland to provide support did not allow the garland to go round the neck.
It required somebody to physically put the gajamala round the neck.
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This is when anniversary suddenly turned into a circus with a youth hanging on to the hook of the crane getting lifted to the top of the statue like Spiderman. Limbs would have broken had he fallen from the height as he was precariously hanging.
Admirers of Dr. Reddy and activists of the YSR Congress Party were taken aback when the youngster had to step on the statue to arrange the garland properly. But, there was no alternative for the youth in the ill-conceived attempt to put the garland around the neck. Had he not put his leg on the statue, he would have fallen down and injured himself, observed passers-by who happened to witness the entire circus.