Hyderabad: Union minister Rajnath Singh will attend a public meeting to be organised by the Telangana BJP at Nizamabad tomorrow to highlight the party's demand for official celebration of the merger of the erstwhile Nizam State with the Indian Union.   

The public meeting would be held at the Polytechnic College ground at Nizamabad tomorrow afternoon, Telangana BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao told PTI here today.   

The Home minister will be the chief guest at the event. The meeting is a culmination of the campaign conducted by the BJP, including a 'yatra' by state unit president K Laxman, in the run up to the day.   

The erstwhile Nizam State of Hyderabad was merged with the Indian Union on September 17, 1948 following the intervention of the country's first Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.   

Describing September 17 as 'Telangana Liberation Day', the BJP has been demanding for years that the day be celebrated officially by the state government.   

Laxman had alleged that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who had supported the demand for official celebration of the day during undivided Andhra Pradesh, has now taken a U-turn due to "vote bank politics". In addition to the 'yatra', the BJP held protests outside offices of district Collectors as part of its campaign.   

The party leaders, led by Laxman, had also met Governor ESL Narasimhan to direct the TRS government in the state to officially celebrate the day.   

Responding to BJP's demand, Telangana IT minister K T Rama Rao had said the state government had been already celebrating on a grand scale the formation of the state on June 2 (in 2014).  

The demand for celebration of September 17 was made in undivided Andhra Pradesh as Telangana's identity was not appropriately recognised then, he had said. The BJP is raking up communal issues, he had alleged. "We also say that we will officially celebrate the day if we come to power," Krishna Rao said. PTI