The promise made by first Chief Minister of the residuary State of Andhra Pradesh N. Chandrababu Naidu at the swearing-in ceremony on Sunday that he would hold the first Cabinet meeting in Visakhapatnam, rekindles an old memory in the legislative history of the erstwhile Andhra State. And the Andhra University in Visakhapatnam at that time took the centre-stage.
Flipping back the pages of history, on October 1, 1953, the new state of Andhra with 11 districts of Telugu-speaking portion of the erstwhile Madras state was carved out with Kurnool as the capital. Tanguturi Prakasam, who was fondly called as Andhra Kesari, was its first Chief Minister and he held the first summer session of the Assembly in Visakhapatnam in May 1954. And more so it was held in the TLN Sabha hall at Andhra University.
TLN Sabha hall was built in 1939, and the seating arrangement was changed to host the Assembly session. The speaker’s podium and the treasury bench were located on the east side near the entrance and the rest of the hall was divided between the ruling and opposition parties.
Reminiscing the sessions, former Mayor of Visakhapatnam D.V. Subba Rao, who was then a student at the university, said, “The leaders, whether in the ruling or in the opposition were stalwarts and great orators.
There would be high-intellectual debates and it was worth listening.”
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was the Deputy Chief Minister and the leader of the opposition was his own brother-in-law Tarimella Nagi Reddy, and their high-voltage exchange was termed as ‘Krishna- Arjuna Samvadam’, Mr. Subba Rao recalled.
Local leader Tenneti Viswanadham was then the minister of Finance and Law, and it was incidentally during this session that Prakasam Pantulu’s ministry was defeated by a single vote in a no-confidence motion on the Prohibition Bill.
TLN Sabha hall has a hallowed past, as many great orators of the past did deliver inspiring lecturers, but the hall today urgently needs a facelift.