Prime Minister Narendra Modi was received by Governor Tamilisai Soundarajan, Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy, Minister for Animal Husbandry T. Srinivas Yadav, State BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar and others, while Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, as expected, was not present at the Begumpet airport when he arrived by a special flight on Thursday afternoon.
Top officials, including Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy, city police commissioner C.V. Anand and others were also present to receive the Prime Minister. In fact, most of the senior officials had seen off the Chief Minister at the airport as he was leaving for Bengaluru a short while before the PM landed.
The Telangana BJP put up huge cut outs of Mr. Modi and other leaders, and adorned the surroundings with party flags near the makeshift stage readied to meet and greet Mr. Modi. Party workers and leaders began trooping into the airport, now being used only for VIP and armed forces flights, hours before the PM’s arrival as the police barricaded the entire area, frisked everyone and let in only those with valid passes issued by them.
Cultural artistes put up a show to keep the gathering entertained before the main programme started as the top leadership of the BJP from the region sat on the stage -- including MLAs – M. Raghunandan Rao, Eatala Rajendra, T. Raja Singh, senior leaders P. Muralidhar Rao, former MLC N. Ramchander, former MLA NVSS Prabhakar, former MP Vivek Venkatswamy, film actress Vijayashanthi and many others.
Once Mr. Modi came onto the stage and greeted everyone with folded hands, the gathering broke into applause and shouts of “Modi...Modi”. Mr. Sanjay Kumar was the only speaker at the reception before the Prime Minister took over. He, later took a helicopter to fly towards the University of Hyderabad (UoH) and from there by road to the ISB.
