On Wednesday, the Jinnah Tower in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur was seen painted in tricolor after the ruling YSRCP MLA Mohammad Mustafa pledged to hoist India’s national flag at the Jinnah Circle. This is after the controversy that errupted on Republic day as the Guntur Police arrested the members of the Hindu Vahini Group for trying to unfurl India’s national flag at the circle named after Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

According to the reports, YSRCP MLA Mohammad Mustafa said that on request of various groups, he had decided to make arrangements to hoist the national flag at the Tower, now painted in tricolor. “Muslim leaders fought against the British during the freedom struggle. After Independence, some Muslims left India and settled in Pakistan. But we wanted to continue to live in our country as Indians and we love our motherland”, he was quoted.

On January 26, as the nation celebrated 73rd Republic Day, the Guntur Police used force to control people who were trying to unfurl tricolors on the tower. They arrested a few and increased the security in the area ensuring no one climbed the tower to hoist India’s national flag.

The video of the incident went viral over social media attracting wide criticism from the netizens who asked why there still is a tower and a circle named after Jinnah in India. Netizens also compared the episode to that in Srinagar and said that once upon a time this would be witnessed in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk.

A month ago, the BJP National Secretary Y Satya Kumar had also called for the renaming of Jinnah Tower Centre.

In his tweet, he had said that it was an insult to the country to have a center with the name of a traitor even after 75 years. Kumar along with Telangana BJP MLA Raja Singh demanded the tower to be renamed in APJ Abdul Kalam’s name.

The Jinnah tower located on Mahatma Gandhi Road in Guntur is one of its kind tower named after Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. As reported earlier, the tower in Guntur allegedly stands as a ‘symbol of peace and harmony’ in the city. One theory of its origins suggests that Lal Jan Basha, a Telugu Desam Party member felicitated Judaliyaquat Ali Khan, a representative of Jinnah when visited Guntur in the pre-Independence era by building this tower.

References:

opindia.com