HYDERABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a six-hour visit to Telangana on Saturday, but Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao did not greet him.

At Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, the Prime Minister was greeted by Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Union Minister for Tourism and Culture G. Kishan Reddy, and State Minister for Animal Husbandry Talasani Srinivas Yadav.

Modi was greeted by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy, and other high-ranking authorities. Chandrasekhar Rao, who has been publicly criticising Prime Minister Modi, declined to meet with him. Minister Srinivas Yadav had been appointed by Rao as the Minister-in-Waiting to receive and see off the Prime Minister.

KCR is also unlikely to join the stage with Modi when he unveils the 216-foot-high Statue of Equality in the evening at Muchintal near Shamshabad.

The Prime Minister took a helicopter to Patancheru after arrival at the airport. He will inagurate the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics' golden jubilee celebrations (ICRISAT). He will also present a specially created logo and a commemorative postal stamp for ICRISAT's Climate Change Research Facility on Plant Protection and Rapid Generation Advancement Facility.

Modi will arrive at the airport at 4.50 p.m. after the ICRISAT event and go by car to Chinna Jeer Swamy's ashram in Muchintal. He would spend three hours there performing pooja and dedicating Saint Ramanujacharya's statue.

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