Rajiv Gandhi & The Mysterious Connection With Hyderabad

Love it or hate it, IPL is here to stay and a big medium to convey messages. So i thought of using it to convey a grouse i have for some time. Below is a screenshot from iplt20 website giving the list of venues. Anything unusual ? In our School exams we used to have questions like 'Find the Odd One Out'? I am talking about that kind of exercise here.

See the names of different stadiums where IPL matches were played. All the stadium names are associated with local people except one. Wikipedia helped me to find the below details about them:

• Bangalore - M. Chinnaswamy Stadium - Named after the person who served Karnataka State Cricket Association for 4 decades and former president of BCCI.
• Chennai - M.A. Chidambaram Stadium - Named after the former president of BCCI and TNCA.
• Mumbai - Seshrao Krushnarao Wankhede Stadium - Named after secretary of MCA.
• Delhi - Feroze Shah Kotla - Named after the King who ruled Delhi once. I guess the stadium is in the area where the King built his fortified city. (One of the 7 cities of Delhi)
• Jaipur - Sawai Mansingh Stadium - Named after the Maharaja.
• Mohali - Punjab Cricket Association Stadium.
• Kolkatta - Eden Gardens - Named after the area which has some association with British history.
• Dharmashala - HPCA (Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association) Stadium.
• Ranchi - JSCA (Jharkhand State Cricket Association) Stadium.
• Hyderabad - Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium -Hmm, Rajiv Gandhi ! What is his immense contribution to Hyderabad Cricket or Andhra Pradesh Cricket ?-- Mystery 1

Now let us talk about Airport names of some IPL cities:

• Mumbai - Chatrapathi Shivaji International Airport.
• Kolkatta - Netaji Subash Chandra Bose International Airport.
• Delhi - Indira Gandhi International Airport.
• Chennai - Chennai International Airport. The domestic and international terminals are named after Kamaraj and Annadurai.
• Hyderabad - Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. Hmm, Rajiv Gandhi again !! Mystery 2

So what is the secret connection behind Hyderabad and Rajiv Gandhi? Is he from Hyderabad or Andhra Pradesh? Had he served all his life for the benefit of Andhra People? There's got to be some logic for this 'naming convention' right ! Well the mystery is simple - AP Congress members or at that time their supreme regional leader wants to prove to Madam the extent of Brown nosing they are capable of. Sycophants wants to prove their loyalty to the 'dynasty' and therefore even changed the name of stadium.

One of my habits is to observe the names of places, events or schemes and the logic or story behind them. They give us a glimpse into the history of the place, people and their perspective. So when we come across names like Chaudhary Charan Singh Lucknow Airport or Birsa Munda Airport Ranchi or KempeGowda Bus Terminal (so-called Majestic of Bangalore) - they tell us the story of the local people, their history and their legacy. And i believe this is the best way to initiate ourselves or even children into history.Now if we start naming everything after the 'dynasty', what happens to the so-called 'diversity' of India ?

Below tweet sums up our reaction regarding the dynasty naming scheme:

And for a change we do have some Congress leaders who think about local leaders also when it comes to naming airports or stadiums. Below is an old tweet from MP Shashi Tharoor and my reply to him.

I humbly request people to enlighten me regarding the contribution of Rajiv Gandhi to Hyderabad, AP etc that can justify this naming scheme. And i hope the logic will be more reasonable than the one used by Maharashtra Congress for naming Bandra-Worli Sea Link after Rajiv Gandhi. (Reason they used is - Rajiv Gandhi was born in Bombay !! )