Ananthasayanam Ayyangar statue to be unveiled

Special Correspondent

TIRUPATI: A statue of Madabhushi Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, the second Speaker of the Lok Sabha, will be unveiled here on Saturday.

Born at Tiruchanur near here, Ayyangar had his early education in the Devasthanam High School, Tirupati and the Pachiappa's College, Chennai. Having graduated from the Madras Law College, he practised as a lawyer at the age of 22 at Chittoor. He joined the Non-Cooperation Movement under the stewardship of Gandhiji and courted arrest several times.

Ayyangar became Municipal Councillor in 1922, joined the Central Legtislature in 1935 and was Deputy Speaker under the legendary Lok Sabha Speaker Mavlankar, before eventually stepping into his shoes after his demise in 1955. Ayyangar was handpicked to the coveted post by none other than stalwarts like by Govind Ballabh Panth and Pandit Nehru. His contemporaries in Parliament were Bulabhai Desai, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Sathyamurthy, besides Andhra Kesari T. Prakasam Panthulu and Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya.

Ayyangar served with distinction as Lok Sabha Speaker for seven years and visited China in 1956 as the leader of a parliamentary delegation. In 1957, he hosted the first Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in India and presided over the CPA Conference in Canberra in 1959. An authority on Hindu Law, Personal Law and the Constitution, he later became the Governor of Bihar and held the post till 1967 before settling down at Tirupati.

The Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidya Peeth here owes its existence to the unstinted efforts of Ayyangar as the Chairman of the then Kendriya Sanskrit Sanghathan, which eventually metamorphosed into a Sanskrit Vidya Peeth and finally blossoming into what it is now a deemed university with a campus at the feet of the holy `Seven Hills'.

Ayyangar breathed his last on March 19, 1978.

Agarala Eswara Reddy, former Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker and the Founder-Chairman of the Madabhushi Ananthasayanam Institute of Public Affairs (MAIPA), said Ayyangar was an eminent scholar, powerful speaker, a noble humanitarian and an ethical person. The life-size bronze statue will be unveiled by Maharashtra Governor S.M. Krishna.