While a controversy has arisen in Tamil Nadu over a statue of the late Telugu actor Shobhan Babu, statues of personalities hailing from the southern state have sat proudly in Andhra Pradesh for decades.
M.G. Ramachandran, M.S. Subbulakshmi, Kamaraj, C.N. Annadurai and Periyar E.V. Ramaswami Naicker are some of the ‘non-Telugu’ personalities who have been given pride of place on pedestals across Andhra Pradesh.
A statue of classical diva M.S. Subbalakshmi greets all music lovers who come to Tirupati, where she is revered for her rendition of the Venkateswara Suprabhatam in the Tirumala temple.
Puttur and Nagari towns on the Tamil Nadu border have a sizeable Tamil population and are home to statues of Tamil leaders. At election time, it is the norm thee for candidates to launch their campaigns after garlanding the statues of Tamil leaders.
In Nagari town, there are statues at every corner, including one of K Kamaraj in Satravada panchayat, now a part of the Nagari municipality, which was unveiled by the then AP Chief Minister Jalagam Vengal Rao. In nearby Pudupet, a statue of Kamaraj statue was unveiled by the thespian Sivaji Ganesan. There was a statue of Annadurai in Ekambarakuppam too. But the statues vanished from the town’s landscape when road widening was taken up a decade ago.
However, the Chintalapatteda ward still has statues of Kamaraj, Annadurai and also M.G. Ramachandran. The Kamaraj statue was formally unveiled by former president Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy.
There is a statue of M.G. Ramachandran in the old bus stand area of Puttur town. Though an overbridge was built in the vicinity, efforts were taken to preserve the statue by shifting it to a corner. In Chittoor district, where most people speak fluent Tamil and 60 per cent of the population of the headquarters is Tamil, a public place is called Anna Maidan after Annadurai. Similarly, the Kattukaluva Street was rechristened as M.G. Ramachandran Street.
In Visakhapatnam, social reformer Periyar E.V. Ramasamy’s statue was unveiled on Beach Road here in 2012 by Tamil Kazagham president and the Chancellor of Periyar Maniammai University, K. Veeramani.
