DatelineAndhra Ebook

Dateline Andhra
&
An Overview of
Political Movements in
Andhra
R J Rajendra Prasad
Published by R S Prasad
1
ISBN : 978-81 8465-211-6
Cost: Rs.200/-
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Contents
In Lieu of Forward ................................................. 4

My days in Madras Journalism .............................. 9
My Coastal Andhra Assignment .......................... 41
P V Narasimha Rao ............................................. 65
Jalagam Vengala Rao .......................................... 87
Dr Chenna Reddy’s two terms as Chief Minister.. 105
News behind News .............................................. 124
Preface ................................................................ 135
An Overview of the
Political Movements in Andhra ............................ 139
Congress politics ................................................. 178
The Beginning of Telugu Desam ......................... 197
NTR’s First Political Crisis .................................. 232
NTR, Congress & National Front ....................... 272
NTR, as Leader of Opposition ............................ 315
Lakshmi Parvathi & NTR’s Second
Political Crisis ..................................................... 346
Chandra Babu – Reform & Compromise ............. 389
Chandrababu’s National Politics ......................... 427
Acknowledgements ............................................. 437
Photographs .............................................................
3
In lieu of Foreword
A journalist, by definition and temperament, is

supposed to be a non-stop learner and incessant
observer of men and matters as part of his
professional work. There are now courses for those
desiring to enter the field of journalism organized by
Universities and Academia. This is a welcome change
from the past when a beginner was supposed to hone
his skills by trial and error with no written guidelines
for improvement. A number of text books have been
written on how to report, edit and produce a
newspaper. Yet the spring source of inspiration for
young practitioner is the work and experience of the
veterans in the field. Context takes precedence over
the text for a journalist. And here the memoirs of
seniors come as handy guides.
Autobiographies of eminent journalists have been

perennial source of inspiration and instruction to the
young practitioners. Memoirs of veteran American
Journalists Walter Lipmann and James Reston have
been rated as rich source of information so that the
young practitioners can march forward securely and
4
R J Rajendra Prasad : Dateline Andhra
safely on the path of perfection. M Chalapathi

Rau’s ‘Fragments of a Revolution’ and extremely
interesting Pen-portraits under Pseudonym Magnus,
Kotamraju Rama Rau’s magnum opus ‘Pen as my
Sword’ and K Eswar Dutt’s equally scintillating book
‘Street of Ink’ were read with great zeal and avid
interest by hundreds of scribes of our generation and
its beneficial influence in discharging professional
responsibilities can hardly be exaggerated. To this
rich source of memoir literature we have now to add
Rajendra Prasad’s beautifully penned account of his
own career spanning over nearly four decades.
R J Rajendra Prasad had a brilliant academic

background when he entered the profession. He made
a decisive choice to become a journalist forsaking the
coveted post of Lecturer. In fact, he was advised by a
well wisher not to enter the stormy and unsettled sea
of journalism giving up the job of Lecturer in a
Madras College. The decision was a blessing to him
and the profession. His penchant for hard work, keen
observation and lucid presentation marked him out
5
as one of the best journalists of his time. I have
known him from the days when he was posted as
Correspondent for the entire Coastal Andhra based
at Vijayawada. He achieved the rare distinction of
making The Hindu more popular than the local
vernacular media by his innumerable human interest
stories. Mostly off the beat and far from the usual,
these stories attracted the attention of a large
number of readers who were fed up with the routine
stuff.
When he shifted to State Capital in seventies, Andhra

Pradesh was going through tumultuous developments
in the political arena. He grasped the essence of each
development and its impact on the political front. He
presided over The Hindu Hyderabad Bureau since the
days of P V Narasimha Rao’s Chief Ministership.
And, in between, he reported epoch making political
developments leading to the emergence N T Rama
Rao’s Telugu Desam and its thumping success in the
subsequent elections. His successor and son-in-law,
Nara Chandrababu Naidu was at the helm of affairs
6
when Prasad retired. One should read his reportage

of the succession struggle in the Telugu Desam with
anguish and sympathy – former in favour of the
ousted NTR and latter for the new incumbent.
Rajendra Prasad admittedly has strong opinions like
any other politically minded citizen but he never
allowed his political sympathies to cloud professional
judgments, a point worthy of emulation by any
journalist in these days of partisan and faction
ridden politics and sensation mongering media.
Anybody who is interested in the political history of

Andhra Pradesh during the last four decades would
be well advised to go through this book. The effort is
no doubt painstaking due to its bulkiness;
never-the-less, extremely rewarding. A journalist,
even if he pretends to be master of one discipline,
should necessarily be Jack of all. Rajendra Prasad
was interested not only in the politics and routine
beats but in social and cultural life of the people of
the state. That he used to frequently attend literary
meetings held regularly every month in Vijayawada
7
(He has mentioned the authors with whom he had
literary encounters.) is a convincing proof. He had
multi-faceted interests and his curiosity happily was
not confined to mere news reporting. The book is
easily readable and extremely enjoyable. His style is,
like the man himself, serene and simple. He had
mentioned that in the contest for Andhra Congress
Presidentship in the early fifties, Neelam Sanjiva
Reddy defeated Prakasam instead of N G Ranga.
And elsewhere, referring to 1972 Assembly elections,
he mentioned that CPI (M) got one seat where as CPI
drew blank, when actually the latter had won six
seats. Such factual inaccuracies do not affect the
worth of the book. After reading the book, Rajendra
Prasad’s image is reflected as professionally
competent, committed and conscious journalist.
Finally, I thank the family members of Rajendra
Prasad for giving me this opportunity to pay tributes
to a long standing and lovable friend in and outside
the profession.
14-06-2010 C Raghavachari
8
My Days In Madras Journalism
I became a reporter by accident. While working as a

Lecturer at the Sir Thyagaraya College in Madras in
1961, I chanced to see an advertisement in the Indian
Express for reporters, and I applied. Those days, the
Indian Express used to be printed at Chittoor, after a
strike and lock-out in its Madras office, and the
Express wanted new reporters to man its Madras
bureau. I was called for a written test at the Express
Estates in Mount Road, and I was one of the three
selected to work as a reporter.
I was happy at the prospect because of better salary.

The College used to pay me Rs 150 per month as
basic pay and Rs 40 as dearness allowance.
Compared to this, the Indian Express offered Rs 150
as salary, Rs 40 as dearness allowance and Rs 75 as
conveyance allowance. Also, I looked for a change in
the profession, because I did not fancy retiring from
service as a Lecturer.
I reported at the Indian Express office three days

later, and was greeted by V.S.Ganapathi Sarma, the
Chief of Bureau. He brusquely asked me to occupy
9
one of the empty chairs. Next to me sat the two
other reporters who also joined that day. Ganapathi
Sarma was a Pickwick-like character, a rotund figure
with a bulldog face, who wore a tight coat, a
crumpled tie, and always looked above his glasses,
when he had to see who were all present in the room.
I expected a lecture on journalism, or at least some
tips about what exactly a reporter is supposed to do,
or how to write reports, but there was nothing of that
sort. After sitting there in that dreary room for an
hour, Ganapathi Sarma asked the three of us new
reporters to come to his table, where he asked me to
go to the “Chepauk beat”. What was Chepauk and
what was the beat? no one felt obliged to explain. So
saying, he got up, picked up his bag, and walked out
of the room, as if he was glad to get out as early as
he could.
The two other new reporters, Ganapathi and

Gurudas, got the beats of “Police” and “Secretariat”.
There was a thoughtful looking Deputy Chief of
Bureau, R.Ramachandra Iyer, who was adjusting
10
press notes in his handbag, and we three went to him,

hoping to get some directions. “Your beat is
Chepauk?”, he asked me, “What you have to do is to
go to the Chepauk Guest House and wait there.
Another three or four reporters will gather there. A
man called N.Ranga Rao, a slightly well built person
wearing a coat, but without a tie, will come. He is the
senior Reporter of THE HINDU. You simply have to
follow him, wherever he goes”, said R.R. He then
added as an afterthought: “He tends to get scoops.
Don’t lose sight of him!”.
It occurred to me that journalism was an easy affair;

one only has to see that the THE HINDU man does
not get lost. I went to the Chepauk guest house, and
sat in the lounge where another man was sitting. He
was R.K.K.Menon, a Reporter for the Madras
MAIL. Then THE HINDU man came, and I could
instantly recognise him. I went up to him and
introduced myself. He looked at me with a glassy
expression in his eyes and asked me why I opted to
become a Reporter, leaving the job of a Lecturer.
11
“You don’t know, but once a reporter, always a
reporter”, he said. “If there is any chance, go back to
your College”, he advised. I politely thanked him for
his advice, but remembering what RR said, I followed
him, as he led a group of four reporters to room after
room of various departments located in the Chepauk
offices complex. This was an old building of the
Nawab of Arcot, and I saw nameplates such as
“Director of Industries”, or “Director of Agriculture”
or “Director of Sericulture” and Ranga Rao would
walk into the office of the Personal Assistant to the
Director, and ask him: “Is there any news?”. “No,
Sir, nothing today”, the man would reply, and we
would go into another PA’s room, and the same
routine would be repeated. After walking along the
corridor, from one end to another, Ranga Rao would
lead us to the canteen, and considering that was my
first day in the profession, I offered to buy coffee and
tiffin for all the four of us. Ranga Rao virtually
admonished me for attempting to do so: “Everyone
of us gets a salary, is it not so? So everyone must pay
for his tiffin, don’t you think so?’ he asked. This was
12
the rule among Madras reporters those days, each

paying for himself though all went in a group.
That evening, I was assigned to cover a meeting

addressed by Chief Minister, K.Kamaraj. He spoke
to Non Gazatted Officers at a function for about 15
minutes. His theme was that NGOs should regard
themselves as the servants of the people, not as
Masters, and interpret the rules in favour of the
common people. I went to the office and typed out a
one page report and showed it to a senior reporter
present, who approved it, and sent it to the
Teleprinter department, for onward transmission to
Chittoor, where “Master”, the News Editor, sat. His
name was C.S.Seshadri but everyone called him
“Master” as I believe he was a tuition master for
Bhagwandas Goenka, the son of Ramanath Goenka.
Next morning, I got up quite early, and waited for the
newspaper to drop into the house, and was thrilled to
see my first report in print! It was a single column
report on Page 1, titled “servants of people”. I went
through the reports of the function in THE HINDU
13
and other dailies and compared my choice of words
with the reports in those dailies. Since most of the
senior reporters in The Indian Express were either
dismissed or sent out, junior reporters got the best
assignments, and we made the best of opportunities
that came our way.
Next day, I found that Ganapati Sarma had marked

a small one centimeter report in THE HINDU and
told me that I had missed that report. I don’t
remember what it was about, but it had the magic
phrase: “... told THE HINDU at Chepauk today”
which gave credit to Ranga Rao and blame to the
other reporters covering the beat. That day, naturally
I was cool to Ranga Rao, since I thought he did us
wrong by getting a scoop, but we four went together
to various departments where the PAs told us that
there was no news, and we went to the canteen, ate
something and came back to the office. There was
another scoop by Ranga Rao the following day and
Ganapathi Sarma told me that “Ranga Rao is a wily
person. He easily scores over juniors like you, but you
14
have to keep a watch over him”. I followed Ranga

Rao like a shadow, but I was missing reports. I struck
up some sort of a relationship with R.K.K.Menon,
the Mail reporter, and asked him whether he was also
pulled up for missing Chepauk beat stories. “What
Ranga Rao gives is not news but only
announcements, such as last date for payment of fees
for examinations, or some such thing from the
gazette. He talks to some official, and quotes that
official, saying he told THE HINDU at Chepauk
what had already appeared in the Gazette, just to
score over others. Nobody dare pull me up in the
Mail, because they know that what HINDU scored
was a second hand story of a minor importance”.
But Ganapathi Sarma did not seem to think so.
I was getting worried because I seem to miss stories,

which were being pointed out by Ganapathi Sarma. I
knew no one in journalism to whom I could go for
advise, while those senior journalists in the INDIAN
EXPRESS were keeping aloof, as if they did not want
to reveal their trade secrets!. Here I was, just 23,
15
working as a reporter in a profession that was
completely new to me, without any help or guidance.
I started reading Madras datelined reports in THE
HINDU, INDIAN EXPRESS and the MAIL carefully,
to find out what they were covering and what they
were avoiding.
On the fourth day of my Chepauk beat, I thought I

should be able to get a scoop myself. So, after we
dispersed from the canteen, I went to the bus stop,
waiting for buses, and as the others got into their
buses and left, I went back to the Chepauk offices
complex, and took a round of the various blocks all
by myself. There was a small dinghy looking block
which had the board: “Director, Bukingham Canal
Project”. The PA had apparently no work to do and
was sleeping in his chair. I introduced myself and
asked him to send my visiting card to the Director.
He looked up at me and asked me whether Ranga
Rao was on leave that day, but he nevertheless went
inside, and the Director saw me. I knew nothing
about the Buckingham Canal, but asked him how far
16
the canal project had come. The officer looked

communicative, and he spoke about his problems in
cleaning up the canal so that it could be used as a
waterway to transport timber, rice, or tamarind from
the Sriharikota region of Nellore to Madras City.
Water transport was very cheap compared to road or
rail transport, he explained.
I did not know whether the whole thing was “off” or

“on” record, but I wrote out a half a column story,
with the phrase “.. told The Indian Express at
Chepauk today” and showed it to Ganapathi Sarma,
who okayed it. Next day, it appeared as a double
column story on Page 1, and I was happy as I
imagined how Ranga Rao would have been taken to
task for missing such a story. Nothing happened to
Buckingham Canal from then till now, but the 1961
vision I created for the canal as a busy waterway
teaming with boats carrying timber, rice and
tamarind, remains still fresh in my mind.
There was a distinct shift in the attitude of Ranga

Rao and others the next day at Chepauk. I sat as if I
17
was not the author of the story, but Ranga Rao said
one should not get others in trouble by giving scoops
in the beats. The Mail man said that it should apply
equally to all four of us, and Ranga Rao agreed, but
he added: “now and then, a small scoop is OK”.
Every day of the week, I was assigned to cover public

meetings, and it became tiresome, because I had to
catch the last bus on Route No. 29 to Perambur from
the Express Estates in Mount Road at about 8.40 pm.
If you missed the bus, you had to sleep in the office,
because auto rickshaws were very few and were
terribly expensive for long distances. Taxis were out
of question.
I settled down in my new profession quite uneasily,

because I still did not know how to write a report,
and was wondering whether I will make a mark.
One day, the teleprinter operator came to the room
and told me that Master wanted to speak to me at
the Teleprinter room. I thought the old man must
have found out something I missed at Chepauk, and
reluctantly went. But Master said: “You see, that
18
Krishnamurthy Iyer, has given 100 pages to the

Teleprinter operator for transmission to Chittoor.
You must read that stuff and give a story in 800
words. Can you do that?”. I said I will try.
Krishnamurthy Iyer retired from Mail, and was
working for the Indian Express as the High Court
reporter. Some judge retired from service, and in the
open court, they paid him farewell. What the
venerable Krishnamurthy Iyer, the man in a coat and
turban, already 75 years old, did was to write just
one sentence each in five pages, such as - “Bidding
farewell to the brother Judge, the Chief Justice said..”
and here followed the full text of 40 pages of the CJ’s
speech, and “the Advocate General said...” and
another 30 pages, and “replying to the felicitations
the Judge said” ... another 45 pages. I told Master I
was assigned to go to Chepauk that day. “Don’t
worry, today do this job only”. I sat down with the
bunch of papers, not knowing where to begin. Slowly,
I regained my composure; I read the bunch of papers,
taking down notes here and there. I remembered one
thing - that the report should be only 800 words long,
19
and I decided I will give the CJ about 400 words, and
200 words each to the Judge and Advocate General.
Then the scene started to come into a focus, and I
picked phrases of my choice, and did a summary.
That was quite a task, and next day, Master
telephoned to say I did quite a good job!
I was meeting more and more reporters of the other

dailies during my evening meeting assignments,
people such as Namasivayam of Nava India,
Murugesan of Malai Murasu, and L.Venkatraman
of Press Trust of India. LV was quite a friendly
person, and he used to say a good word about my
reports in the Express. He gave lot of useful tips.
How to write a report? “You see, you are an
intelligent member of the audience, and as you come
out of a meeting, someone will ask you what
transpired at the meeting. You say something, and
the way you summed up the meeting, is your lead. It
is as simple as that. Use simple words. Write simple
sentences. Read PTI and Reuter reports for clarity.
The finished product is there for all to see, these are
the good reports, try to follow those examples. That
20
is all there is to learn in journalism”, he used to say.
I got a good break one day when the Vice President,

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, addressed a meeting at
Rajaji Hall. A senior reporter from THE HINDU
was assigned to cover the meeting, attended by the
elite of Madras city, and I sat among the audience, as
Radhakrishnan mixed philosophy and politics to
deliver a beautiful speech. As I sat through the
torrent of words, I was quite immersed in thought,
wondering what to report from a speech that looked
good from beginning to end, but there was nothing
by way of a “news point”. As I travelled in the bus to
Express Estates, I located an outline in the speech,
and keeping my deadline of catching my last bus to
Perambur, I hurriedly typed out a report in 20
minutes flat and went home. My report appeared as
the second lead story in the Express, while THE
HINDU missed the speech altogether. It appeared
that the senior reporter took the speech in full in
shorthand, and spent lot of time reading notes,
trying to figure out where to start from. The desk
21
asked him for the copy at 9 pm, 10 pm and 10.30 pm
but still his report was not ready. The sub editor
consulted the News Editor and said he will not take
the report if it came after 11 pm. So the report, in
about four columns or 4,000 words, given at
midnight, never made it to the paper.
Next day, there was a discussion in THE HINDU as

to why they could not carry the report, and how a
cub reporter in the Express managed it. A few days
later, Ranga Rao took me aside at Chepauk, and
asked me whether I was willing to work for THE
HINDU. Yes, of course, I said. Then he asked me to
come to their office and meet the Chief Reporter. I
went to THE HINDU and met A.K.Venkatesa Iyer,
the Chief of Bureau. Those days, THE HINDU
wanted a reporter to have a first class MA degree,
and a diploma in shorthand and typewriting. I had
learnt shorthand and typewriting while I was in
College hoping to do some job in summer holidays,
and so I fulfilled their conditions. AKV saw my
biodata and was satisfied. A few days later, I was
22
asked to appear for an interview, with Sri G.Kasturi,

then Joint Editor and K.Balaraman, a Deputy Editor,
who had just returned from New York after winning
the UN Correspondents medal for distinguished
reporting. I remember only that the interview went
on for about 40 minutes, and suddenly Kasturi asked
me when could I join the THE HINDU. “Within a
day or two Sir”, I replied. “Will they relieve you so
early?” he asked. I told him I was only an apprentice
Reporter, and I could explain THE HINDU offer and
they would not come in the way. That was how I
joined THE HINDU in June, 1962. I was placed on
probation for one year, because I was 24 years old,
and I should be 25 before I could be confirmed in the
job.
AKV was a formidable personality, wearing a dhothi

with a coat and a turban, and he sat at the head of
the table in the Reporting section. He rarely spoke
with reporters. There were about 15 reporters in all
and we assembled around 11 am daily. There was
always a hushed silence in the room. AKV would
23
give the assignments around 11.30 am, and the dairy
would be passed round by an attender and reporters
would leave for their assignments at noon. There was
a water attendant, who gave hot water to reporters,
and a number of them took it, saying that hot water
was good to quench thirst. Somehow, I preferred cold
water, which was available in the Editorial hall where
the sub- editors worked. S.Srinivasan was the Deputy
Chief Reporter. I sat at the end of the hall, along
with D.V.Vasudevan, who reported High Court
proceedings for a week and religious discourses for
another week, A.R.Srinivasan, our Agriculture
Correspondent, and M.C.Sampath who also reported
religious discourses on alternate weeks. The
atmosphere in the Indian Express reporters’ room
was informal, while it was very formal at THE
HINDU. Reporters rarely socialised and there was a
hierarchical relationship, with the senior reporters
keeping aloof from the younger ones, and behaving
as if they were preoccupied with important subjects
of a national importance, while their actual output
was minimal.
24
THE HINDU reporters dreaded having to carry a

correction. So, they made a big fetish of carrying
reports that nobody would contradict. This consisted
of telephoning the man who addressed a press
conference, usually a junior official, and read out the
report to him, and get his nod for its publication. It
was the general rule to avoid comment in the report,
lest the official might contradict it. The junior
reporters usually ventured to make a comment here
and there, and sometimes these got into print because
they were harmless, but the senior reporters would
cite these reports as proof of the falling standards in
journalism! THE HINDU preferred lengthy reports,
sometimes verbatim if leaders like Rajaji spoke, and
these were published without a lead, because the
reader was supposed to be intelligent enough to
decide what was important in the speech, and did not
need the reporter’s help in deciding it!
The Chief Reporters of all dailies invariably assigned

themselves to the “Secretariat” beat. This was the
seat of the Government, and certainly an important
25
assignment, but the Chief Ministers of Tamilnadu
rarely addressed press conferences, nor any Ministers,
and so the Chief Reporters were obliged to report
official postings. So and so District Registrar,
working at Cuddalore, transferred to Chengleput,
vice another Registrar, transferred from Chengleput
to Salem, and so on! The Chief Reporters took
another senior reporter along with them, and the
senior reporters dictacted these tidbits of information
to reporters on duty sitting in the office. I never knew
nor did I ever ask how the Chief Reporter and the
senior reporter spent their time, but they arrived at
the office at 3 pm, to approve of the typed copy of the
postings! I thought I would never do that job,
completely devoid of any initiative.
I got the “Corporation” beat. This consisted of

going to the Madras General Hospital, the Central
station and the Ripon Buildings, the seat of the
Municipal Corporation of Madras. Since the bus
stop was at the Exit gate of the Hospital, we entered
the Hospital at the Mortuary end, checked about the
26
dead bodies brought to the mortuary, noting down

the name of police station which was enquiring into
the mysterious deaths, and walking across the wards
to the Casualty department where we met the
Casualty Medical Officer for any case of “burns”, or
“poisoning” or accident cases. Some CMOs refused
to let the reporters see the registers. Those days, the
joke was that the patients entered the Hospital at the
Casualty department and left via mortuary, while
reporters did the opposite!. From the Hospital, we
had to cross the road again to the Central and see
whether any trains were running late, and then to the
Ripon Buildings where a Deputy Commissioner gave
a heap of notifications about various subjects, such
as last dates for payment of water bills and
municipal taxes. Reporters generally treated these
petty officials with respect because they would help if
we had any problem with municipal staff in our
areas. We would return to the office by 2.30 pm, and
go to our subsidized canteen for food. Day after day,
week after week, I did this beat, trying to like the
drab job as best as I could. Every day I covered a
27
meeting in the evening. The assignments were not
difficult, but the sheer drabness ran us down and
sapped our energy. I used to like night duties, which
we got once a month, because we could escape this
drudgery.
Around this time, the Tamil eveninger, Malai Murasu

(Evening Drum) started publication from the Dina
Thanthi group. There was only one Tamil eveninger
till then, the staid Swadesamitran, started around the
time THE HINDU started in 1880s. The
Swadesamithran was clearly on the decline, having a
circulation of about 20,000 copies, and Malai
Murasu came with a bang, with an initial print order
of 60,000 copies, which it soon increased to one lakh.
The paper appeared at the wayside shops by 2.30 pm,
with screaming headlines, to beat Swadesamitran,
which appeared on the streets at 5 pm. Malai
Murasu always led with city crime stories while
Swadesamithran gave lot of space on Page 1 to
national and international news. The dead body of a
young woman that was washed ashore near
28
Triplicane beach, which we would have noted at the

mortuary two hours earlier, would reveal in Malai
Murasu as the bride in a marriage photo who was
forced to commit suicide because of ill treatment.
The Police would not give details to us, but the paper
gave the whole story. It was always a challenge,
because Malai Murasu had reporters going to every
Police station in Madras to scout for these stories,
contacting the families, and publicising stories of
their hopes and frustrations. They broke new ground
in Tamil journalism. Sundaresan of Malai Murasu
was the beat reporter who was very versatile, and he
spent all his time at the General Hospital. He always
wrote first hand stories, and his sources were the
victims of the hospital staff. He always beat us, but I
did not have any problem because our reports were
measured against those appearing in the Indian
Express and the Mail, and those reports were no
different from ours. And so, it went on for about
three years.
During night duties, I used to produce a paper called
29
“Daily Noise”, in which I parodied reports by senior
Correspondents in THE HINDU. N.Ranga Rao was
on duty and a youngster telephoned to convey a result
of a football league match - Mambalam mosquitoes
beat Triplicane Riders four goals to one. Ranga Rao
would ask: “Wait a minute! This means that
Mambalam mosquitoes made four goals while
Triplicane Riders put one goal, is it not?” and the boy
would respond: “Er, yes, sir!”. Ranga Rao would
persist: “That means that four goals were scored
against Triplicane Riders and one goal against
Mambalam mosquitoes, is it not?”, and the boy
would say: “I will check and call you back Sir”.
If the gazette carried an announcement that the High

Court would be closed on June 30 for mahalaya
amavasya, Ranga Rao would get the panchangam
and check whether the amavasya falls on that day or
not.
THE HINDU published a report one day: “Import of

Minas Oil Banned”. Underneath there was a two
sentence report: “It is reliably learnt that
30
Government has banned the import of minas oil into

the Country. For what purpose minas oil was
imported so far, and in which industry it was used, is
not known”. The fact is that the clerk in charge of
the Andhra Chamber of Commerce at Thambu
Chetty Street did not know the answer, but he got a
copy of the notification from the Government of
India which he showed to THE HINDU beat reporter.
I made fun of this report in my Daily Noise. This
four page typewritten sheet made the rounds in the
Editorial department through Nandakumar and
Palani Prasad, two Sub Editors. These reports
became talking points in the desk, and in discussions
at the 11pm night tea session in the canteen, where
we regularly assembled during night duties, and we
loosened up a bit, cracking jokes at other’s expense.
The bottom line for meticulousness was laid by a

senior reporter called P.R.Srinivasan, who was asked
one day to verify whether a certain gentleman had
died in Salem. PRS went to the gentleman’s house,
carrying his usual umbrella, and found him sitting in
31
his verandah reading THE HINDU. “What, Sir”, PRS
said by way of greeting: “I am glad to see you alive”.
The man became suspicious and asked him why he
was glad to see him alive. “I mean, I am glad to see
you healthy and safe”, PRS said. So, the story goes,
while other newspapers reported his death, THE
HINDU did not, because of the meticulous care of its
Correspondent. Those days, THE HINDU was
regarded as the byword for “correct” news. Nothing
that appeared in THE HINDU could be wrong!.
This fact was drilled into the reporters ears.
One of the assignments I dreaded was covering

meetings at the Lakshmipuram Young Mens
Association in Mylapore. This was a small room that
could seat about 70 people, with a thatched roof, and
the walls were dotted with pictures of eminent
people, all unveiled at functions reported by THE
HINDU. I covered a number of them. The reporters
were the youngest of the lot, because the minimum
age of the audience was 65. They used to saunter in
leisurely around 6.30 pm, and were prepared to sit
32
there till their dinner time. People like Rajaji, High

Court Judges, eminent diplomats, top IAS officers
found it a privilege to address meetings at LYMA.
We reporters called it LOMA, after a popular hair oil
of that time, because most were bald, and were
actually Old Men. We used to give lengthy reports
because Chief Reporters would next day ask you why
you did not give that point highlighted in the Indian
Express.
Those days, reporters had a low status in society.

Covering Rotary meetings at the Connemera Hotel in
Mount Road was quite an embarrassing experience,
because reporters were seated at the door, and were
not allowed to participate in the snacks served to the
members. One day, we discussed this issue at the
Reporters’ Guild and passed a resolution, saying
reporters would boycott Rotary meetings if they were
not invited for the snacks. There was a welcome
change, and the reporters were from then received
invitations for the “tea and snacks”. One of those
days, there was a foreign dignitary passing through
33
the Madras airport, we were asked to talk to him as
he was having his lunch. That gentleman did not
have the courtesy to ask the three reporters meeting
him to join in the lunch, and two of us decided to
boycott his press meet. When the Chief Reporter
asked us why we did not report the event, as one
newspaper reported it, I explained what happened.
As I expected, Sri Kasturi’s attender came to the
reporters section looking for me, and I knew there
was trouble. Sri Kasturi said: “you ought to have
reported the press conference and ordered a lunch for
yourself, and the Office would have paid you the
amount. It was wrong to boycott a press conference
on the ground he did not give you lunch, I say!” I was
relieved that I was let off lightly. In subsequent
incidents of this nature, Sri Kasturi always asked us
to have self-confidence, and not to make issues of
giving coffee and lunch central to reporting press
conferences.
Then one day, I got a break quite unexpectedly. I

missed the beat reporters that day, and I went alone
34
to the General Hospital mortuary, where there was a

body of a person killed in a scooter accident on
Mount Road near the vicinity of the Deaf and Dumb
School under construction at Teynampet. There was
this young woman, Lakshmi, who was waiting near
the Mortuary, and I asked her for whom she was
waiting. She was a construction labourer, and she
saw an accident when a car hit two people riding a
scooter, and both fell down and were struggling for
life in a pool of blood. She ran across the road to lift
them up, but could not do so, while a group of people
were looking at the injured persons without offering
help. Then she called her co-worker to help, and
hailed for a taxi. Three taxis whizzed past, but a
fourth taxi stopped. Lakshmi asked the driver to
shift the two injured to Hospital. The taxi man
asked who would pay the fare. Lakshmi said she had
a gold nose ring which she could give. The man
blinked, but agreed to take the two injured men to
the General Hospital. Lakshmi sat with one of the
injured resting his head on her lap, when her yellow
saree turned red with blood. When they reached the
35
Casualty department, one man died, but the other
was struggling for life. She was waiting for the
relatives to come along and take the body.
It was a moving story, of an illiterate woman

foregoing a day’s wages to come to the help of two
injured in an accident, while the Madras city dwellers
had become impersonal and businesslike, and went
about their business as if this was of no concern for
them. I reacted as a human being, and put aside the
known HINDU etiquette of journalism, and wrote a
story in a friendly, informal way, as if I was writing to
a friend. The News Editor, R.Parthasarathy, whom
we called MP (for “MAIL” Parthasarathy, as he
worked in the Mail before, to distinguish him from
another R.Parthasarathy who was an Associate
Editor), liked the story very much, came to the
Reporters Room looking for me, asking whether we
could get her picture. We were given an office car
(which was given only during important assignments)
and myself and the Photographer,
S.Kothandaraman, went to Saidapet slum in search
36
of her. We located her in the evening, and took her

picture. A number of people in the slum were curious
to see us taking her pictures, but Lakshmi took it in
her stride, and was cheerful despite the day’s ordeal.
We saw her bare house, and found that her entire
belongings consisted of a brass vessel and a few
aluminium utensils.
The story, titled “Quality of Mercy”, became a

talking point in Madras. Next day, the Police
Commissioner, K.Ramamurthy, gave her a cash
reward of Rs 25, which was quite a sum those days,
because her daily wage was Rs 1.50. The report was
picked up by other papers, and Lakshmi’s story
became a lead story in Malai Murasu, and she was
interviewed on All India Radio. A reader from
Madurai, K.S.Venkateswaran, sent a parcel to THE
HINDU, with a yellow saree “to replace her saree
turned red in blood”, and a cash of Rs 20 for
Lakshmi. She was magnanimous in her day, because
she gave ten rupees from this gift to her co-worker,
Ramsingh, who helped her in getting the injured into
37
the taxi. The taxi driver was traced and given a
Rs 25 reward by the Police. Every day we used to
receive gifts for her in THE HINDU, and she got in
all Rs 550 as cash gifts, and cheques for Rs 270, and
more importantly, a brass pot as gift from the
Sankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam. She
had said that she wanted to buy one if her gifts went
beyond Rs 100 and the Acharya saw this and sent a
brass pot to THE HINDU. It was my job daily to go
to her house and hand over those gifts. This act
became a turning point in her career because her
husband, who was unemployed, was given a job by
the building firm that employed her while her brother
was given a job as a cleaner in a petrol bunk.
I wrote a number of reports on Lakshmi getting gifts.

On the day I first interviewed her, I had written:
“Lakshmi stood with a pile of bricks on her head by
the side of her husband, wrapped in a dusty, dull
coloured saree. But one thing was shining brightly on
her person - her nose ring!” And later on, that “the
money also caused a small domestic quarrel.
38
Lakshmi’s mother threatened to leave if she was not

given “something” from the gifts, but she was
persuaded to change her mind. This cost Lakshmi Rs
1.50 because she had to forego a day’s work to settle
the dispute” One day, Lakshmi arrived at THE
HINDU’s office on Mount Road and met the Editor,
Sri G.Kasturi, and requested him to give her a job in
THE HINDU. Sri Kasturi politely told her that THE
HINDU did not employ women, and so she returned
disappointed.
Such stories are common place today, but way back in

1965, I wrote one of the first human interest stories in
THE HINDU that created such a big impact on the
public mind. This was possible because of the
encouragement given by R.Parthasarathy, the News
Editor, who mentioned the story in his book:
“Memoirs of a News Editor - 30 years with THE
HINDU” (Naya Prokash, Calcutta, 1980). “I
attempted to break the rigours of anonymity in the
Reporters room by encouraging reporters to go after
human interest stories and promising them the
39
by-line, “By Our Staff Reporter”. This produced
results beyond my expectation. One of them was so
unusual and out of the ordinary for THE HINDU
readers that it created quite a stir. ... The story
appeared as a box item on Page 1 and the readers’
response was electric. There were hundreds of letters
from all parts of the State hailing Lakshmi as an
outstanding woman of courage and humanity. The
reporter who did the story, Rajendra Prasad, found
his way up the ladder much easier and speedier. He
soon became the youngest Chief of THE HINDU’s
news bureau in Hyderabad.”
40
My Coastal Andhra Assignment
In 1965, Sri Kasturi deputed me to the Press Institute

of India at Delhi for a four week foundation course in
journalism. When I entered the profession, there was
hardly any University offering a course in Journalism
in the South India, and we became reporters by
chance. The Press Institute’s was a good course, and
satisfied my urge for learning the techniques of
journalistic writing. Chanchal Sircar, a former
Assistant Editor at Statesman, was the Director of
the Institute, and he designed the course in such a
way that it included all aspects of newspaper writing.
The PII was located in Barakamba Road, it was a
spacious place with living rooms on the second floor
and lecture halls on the first floor. The mess was in
the ground floor. I visited the Press Institute again in
1994, as a Member of the Committee to prepare
guidelines for the proposed Press Academy of Andhra
Pradesh, and it was disappointing to see the PII had
shrunk to one floor, where it was located in a
cramped place, and the PII had long ago given up its
foundation courses.
41
In 1965, it was my first visit to Delhi, and I was one
among 20 journalists from all over the country who
underwent the training. An Indian who worked as a
News Editor in Guardian newspaper in London was
Course Director. I remember he showed us the piece
he wrote from outside the Wimbledon courtyard, by
standing among people who could not get tickets to
witness the match, and he wrote a very lively piece
about the way people followed the match by the
sounds heard from the stadium. They invited several
foreign correspondents working in Delhi to give us
lectures, and these senior journalists gave useful tips.
One tip I followed throughout my career was the one
given by a Reuter correspondent at Delhi. He said a
reporter should always carry a pocket dictionary,
and if the word he was searching for was not in that
dictionary, the word was not worth using. Walter
Lipman’s column was cited for its clarity of thought,
and the use of simple words. They gave us several
assignments to cover, and one that I remember even
today was what I wrote about the “first Independence
day without Nehru”. I went to the Red Fort for the
42
new Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Sastri, unfurling

the national flag and wrote about what people spoke
about the new PM, and comparing him with Nehru.
My assignment at PII was part of training journalists

in the new styles in reporting. THE HINDU was in
the forefront of changes taking place in journalism as
well as in printing and distribution techniques. We
were the first newspaper to employ four Dakota
aircraft to carry bundles of paper, printed in Madras,
and distributed in Hyderabad and Vijayawada to
start with. While returning from Madras to my
assignment at Vijayawada, I used to travel in the
Dakota, sitting in a chair surrounded by newspaper
parcels. At Vijayawada, we used to disembark and
wait for newspaper agent’s boys unloading the
parcels in a hurry, and placing them in taxis, because
time was the essence in THE HINDU’s distribution
efforts. For some days, THE HINDU started a
passenger service also, and I remember, we used to
transport jasmine flowers from Gannavaram to
Madras around 1968/71. Sometimes, we used to get
43
odd telephone calls at midnight from people who had
to urgently reach Madras by the morning, and we
used to put on those requests to people working in
business departments. I also remember that Morarji
Desai, as Deputy Prime Minister, was stranded in
Bhimavaram during an inspection of a cyclone, and
THE HINDU’s Dakota aircraft was sent to pick him
up and take him to Madras. Capt Havell, the pilot
of the aircraft, used to talk about his experience years
later!
My first “Edit” page article appeared in THE

HINDU on September 16, 1962, within four months
of my joining the paper. It was titled “Laboratory”
To Test Naughty Children’ and dealt with the
problem of juvenile delinquency. I wrote a regular
column - “Around the Colleges” - in which I
discussed lack of student response to courses in B.A.
History classes, the problem of ragging etc.
In a report titled: Ripon Buildings lacking in

Cleanliness”, I wrote:
44
“The walls are dusty, the corridors are strewn with

pieces of paper and the glass doors of a library shelf
on the first floor do not seem have been touched in
years. Probably no book was borrowed from the
library gifted to the Corporation decades ago by a
philanthropist.
“Inside dark rooms with high ceilings, the clerks work

on rickety old furniture, the desks filled with files
stacked to a height of two feet and more.
A fresh chair was given to a reporter in the Press

gallery today after the one he was sitting in started to
creek in the middle”
This is from a report about speech of Union

Education Minister, M.C.Chagla, at St. Paul’s High
School’s 250th anniversary celebrations in Vepery:
“As Mr Chagla started speaking on the “three most
unfortunate features of our education system”, a
little boy stood up and called his teacher. A harassed
man came up running asking in a loud whisper:
What is it? What is it?. The boy pointed to his
45
neighbour, and emptying his pockets, said “He is
putting sand into my packets”. The teacher seated
them separately. The students squatted on the floor
and the Minister sat on the dias, and so the speeches
literally went over the students’ heads. A little boy
sat gaping at the Rt Rev Lesslie Newbegin, as the
Bishop stood on his toes throughout his speech.
Meanwhile, another boy built a sand castle around
the first boy’s hand. The castle fell when the speech
was over. When Mr Chagla said “... I will not be
alive when you celebrate your 300th anniversary”, the
VIPs in the front row smiled politely, but a ripple of
laughter came from the back row. The boys caught
the laughter and thinking something important was
said, started clapping vigorously. Hissing teachers
put an end to it”
When I returned to Madras at the end of the PII

course, News Editor, Parthasarathy, one day called
me to his cabin to announce that I should go to
Vijayawada on a touring assignment. The idea was
that I should be continuously on tour for three
46
months at a sretch, touring all of coastal Andhra and

send “out-of-the-way stories”. As Parthasarathy
explained it, there was no need for me to cover
routine press conferences and Ministers’ functions.
What out of way stories?, I wondered. Then, he said:
“You travel by bus, and listen carefully to what the
fellow passengers are talking about. Those are
subjects relevant to the paper. You simply have to
develop those stories”.
Those days THE HINDU was a 16-page edition with

just a half-a-page devoted to Andhra news. We had
a bureau at Hyderabad, headed by P.Vaman Rao,
with five Staff Correspondents, and there were two
Staffers in coastal Andhra, I.R.K.Sastry at
Vijayawada and Kapila Gopal Rao at
Visakhapatnam. Hyderabad bureau sent enough
matter to fill up the page and so the brief reports
these two gentlemen sent were all that the readers in
coastal Andhra got in THE HINDU. I was sent to
test the potential for news gathering in coastal
Andhra.
47
So one day in October 1966 I landed at Vijayawada
at 5 am, and went to the Welcome Hotel in
Gandhinagar. This was a good hotel, with an
excellent restaurant called Eskimo. I was
comfortable with my daily allowance of Rs 30,
because the room rent was nine rupees a day and the
food was available at reasonable rates. I sauntered
around the town and was soon struck by the fact that
the numerous statues in the town were on eight to ten
feet high pedestals while the statues were only two
feet high, with their ears and nose chopped off
because they were made of cement. The pedastals
were tall in order to accomodate the names of all
Corporators, and officials, but there was no mention
of the dignitary whose statue they erected. This was
my first story from Vijayawada. Two days later, I
went to a meeting of writers on the terrace of
Visalandhra in Governorpet, where authors of repute
like Peddibotla Subbaramayya, Adivishnu and Veeraji
spoke about trends in Telugu literature.
It was a good story, which appeared as a box in
48
Andhra pages. Titled “Young Telugu Writers Break

Away from Traditional Themes”, the report said : “In
an effort to conform to reality and break from
tradition, young Telugu writers are now depicting
middle class frustrations, often at the risk of
offending ‘mass’ readership of Telugu weekly and
monthly magazines.
“When I talk of the common man”, a 28-year old

short story writer, Peddibhotla Subbaramayya, said,
“I mean the student in College who dreams of a good
career, a decent bungalow, a car and a beautiful wife.
But he sees his dreams shattered soon: probably he is
the eldest son, stop his education midway, marry to
enable his sister’s marriage and struggle to get a Rs
100 job. When he lives in a house with five other
tenants, his frustration is complete”. Subbaramayya
wrote about the frustrations of these people.
From Vijayawada I went to Guntur, Kakinada,

Visakhapatnam, Palasa and other towns for which I
took a fancy and wrote stories about various events
49
taking place, which got published in THE HINDU
for the first time. The fact I was based at Vijayawada
was noticed by the readers as well as rival
newspapers. These were features like stories and
senior journalists of other newspapers were amused,
saying that they found it odd that THE HINDU was
wasting so much space on “non-news” items. I took
their criticism in my stride, because only a Minister’s
statement or public meeting was considered as a
news item those days.
At the end of this touring assignment, I returned to

Madras in January, 1967, and was assigned to cover
“interesting bits of information” about the elections
to Tamilnadu Assembly. This was a momentous
election, because DMK came to power for the first
time in Tamilnadu, and the Congress was defeated
for good. C.Rajagopalachari was in the Swatantra
Party, and during the campaign, he described
Kamaraj Nadar as a “Black Crow”. The Congress
leader, Ms Anandanayaki, returned the compliment
by calling Rajaji a “20th Century Fox” after a
50
Hollywood movie studio of that name. Rajaji replied

in his meeting that day: “A crow is black, and when I
called Kamaraj a black crow, I meant that he was the
best among the lot. When I was a student, an uncle
came to my house one day and asked me a simple
question. He said there were 30 crows on a tree, and
asked me how many crows remain after he shoots
one down with his gun. I replied 29, and he pitied my
lack of common sense. If he shoots down one, all 29
crows would have flown off. We have 30 Congress
governments in the Country, Kamaraj is the best
example of these Governments, and if we defeat
Kamaraj here, then all 30 governments in the
Country would fall”, Rajaji explained.
I wrote stories about a timber merchant fighting the

elections as an Independent candidate from
Triplicane, on speakers who charge money to speak
at public functions if the arrival of the VIP is delayed,
and on people who prepare the banners and
hoardings of the contesting candidates. THE
HINDU editorially urged people to re-elect Kamaraj.
51
Those were days of severe rice shortage, and when
the MAIL published a picture of a big queue in front
of a Cooperative Store for rationed rice, Chief
Minister, M.Bhakthavatsalam, mockingly said that
was “actually a queue for cinema tickets, and the
paper mischiviously reported this as a rice queue”. It
was in this campaign that C.N.Annadurai promised
to supply rice at one rupee per madras measure. A
madras measure contained eight “alaks” of rice,
while five alaks weighed one kilogram. If he did not
fulfill this promise, Annadurai said, “people can beat
me with sticks”. The DMK won the election but
Annadurai did not keep this promise. For technical
reasons, the Tamilnadu Government sold rice at one
rupee a measure in Coimbatore only for a few
months.
This promise resurfaced when N.T.Rama Rao

founded the Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh in
1982, and he came up with a promise to supply rice
at Rs 2 per kg. NTR came to power and fulfilled his
promise.
52
In July, 1967, I was transferred on a permanent basis

to Vijayawada as Special Correspondent for Coastal
Andhra. I spent three years there. Those days, the
Srikakulam Naxalite movement had begun, with the
slogan “China’s Chairman is our Chairman” and
“power flows from the barrel of the gun”. I felt very
disturbed when I visited the house of a small time
trader at Palasa murdered by a Naxalite group.
They collected his blood in a bucket, and wrote the
two slogans with the blood on all the walls of the
house. It was a ghastly sight.
While at Vijayawada, I became acquainted with

Manam Anjaneyulu, who was a Sub-Editor in
Visalandhra, the CPI daily. Anjaneyulu opposed the
politics of Katragadda Rajagopala Rao, Editor of
Visalandhra, and was transferred to the trade union
wing in Visakhapatnam. Whenever I went to
Visakhapatnam, he became a constant companion.
He was a good organiser. When there was a student
strike at AVN College at Visakhapatnam, we visited
the College and found the gates closed. I sent in my
53
visiting card, and was admitted, but Anjaneyulu
managed to come in as Correspondent of
Visalandhra without any identity card. We found
that a student meeting was in progress at a lecture
hall and we went to see what the students were
discussing about. Within no time, I saw Anjaneyulu
turning himself into a student leader, and addressing
the gathering, asking them to go on strike! I met the
Principal and took his version but Anjaneyulu did not
come. Anjaneyulu became a good source for the
letters and books published by the CPI (ML) group
and I benefitted by his friendship. In 1994 elections,
Anjanyulu became an MLA from Pendurthi, on the
CPI ticket, benefiting by the landslide for N.T.Rama
Rao who won 250 seats in the Assembly for himself
and his allies out of the 294. Katragadda
Rajagopala Rao later went to the Congress and was
soon out of politics. Once Anjaneyulu was arrested
for sheltering an underground naxalite, and myself
and our Staff Reporter at Visakhapatnam, Kapila
Gopala Rao, went to the Superintendent of Police to
get him released.
54
The best interview I obtained was with

M.L.Narayana, a member of the District Committee
of the CPI (ML), who was arrested while trying to
escape from a jail break at Visakhapatnam.
Anjaneyulu and me went to a magistrate court and
found that Narayana was permitted to talk to his
father for a few minutes on the corridors of the
Court. I did not know what Anjaneyulu told the
court official, but both of us were permitted to stand
within earshot of the prisoner. Narayana had a good
academic background, having a B.Tech degree from
Kharagpur Indian Insitute of Technology, while his
father looked like a farmer. The father was saying
“Leave this organisation and come home. We have a
bride ready for you. Your brother in the Army had
specifically asked me to plead with you to come
home”. Narayana avoided looking at his father in
the face, and was either looking at the ceiling or the
ground. He was shifting his head from left to right,
as if he rejected the suggestion. “Look Narayana, if
you think that you will get a revolution by killing a
dozen people, I am prepared to join with you with my
55
scythe and kill them. You tell me will a revolution
come that way?” Then the father broke down and
with his eyes filled with tears, added: “Please do come
home and look at your mother for once”. Then the
Court officials intervened and led Narayana away
from his father.
It was a moving experience for me. Anjaneyulu

talked to the father for a few minutes and he was also
asked to withdraw from the corridor. I wrote a story
about the human aspect of naxalite youth breaking
off their relations with their families for the cause of
an uncertain revolution. This was featured as a Page
1 box story. Later on, the magistrate tried to find out
how I interviewed Narayana without his permission,
and sent a summons to my hotel address where I was
not available.
I met Nagabushanam Patnaik, one of the big leaders

of the Srikakulam movement, at the residence of a
civil liberties activist, C.Venkatakrishna, in
Secunderabad some years later, when he gave a new
56
insight into the movement. In 1969, the Communist

Party of India (Marxist) had its Andhra plenum at
Palacole in which several CPI (M) leaders such as
Tarimela Nagi Reddy, Chandra Pulla Reddy,
Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao and Kolla Venkayya
presented an alternative document. This group
claimed majority in the Central Committee, but the
CPI (M) leadership expelled them, filled up the
consequent vacancies with others, and announced
that the alternative document was defeated. But the
Tarimela Nagi Reddy group then floated the
Marxist-Leninist group with which the Srikakulam
district committee was affiliated. But as ill-luck
would have it for them, the entire group went to
Madras and was staying in a out of the way house in
the present Anna Nagar, which was then being
developed for a World Trade Fair, when they were
arrested en masse and prosecuted under the
Secunderabad Conspiracy Case.
Nagabushanam Patnaik said that Charu

Mazumdar came to Srikakulam and “hijacked” the
57
Party, saying that a marxist party can capture power
only under the guidance of Mao Zedung thought
through an armed revolution. Tarimela Nagi Reddy
advocated building up militant power struggles above
ground, by motivating farmers and agricultural
labourers, but Charu Mazumdar took the
Srikakulam group in an altogether different
direction. Those days, the Cultural Revolution was
taking place in China, and they published an article
in the People’s Daily praising the Srikakulam
movement, titled “Spring Thunder in Srikakulam”
which was acclaimed as an endorsement of the
Srikakulama movement by the Chinese Communist
Party. Patnaik said he was against the Charu
Mazumdar line of individual anhilation but he was
out voted in the party committee. Patnaik believed
that the slogan “China’s Chairman is our
Chairman” was wrong.
The Srikakulam movement went on from about 1969

till 1971. Compared to the space that Telugu
newspapers are devoting to the People’s War today in
58
2004, the Srikakulam movement was virtually

ignored by the Andhra press. Eenadu came only in
1974, and the Andhra Prabha, Andhra Patrika,
Andhra Jyothi and Andhra Bhoomi reported only
police version of the events taking place there, and
statements by Jalagam Vengal Rao, then Home
Minister in Brahmananda Reddy Cabinet, about how
Government would put down the movement. It was
therefore a virgin ground for me, and I wrote three or
four editorial page articles about the movement and
what they stood for.
Those days K.V. Sriramkumar was the

Superintendent of the Vizianagaram district Police,
and he permitted me to interview Chowdhary
Sampurnamma, a mother with a two year old baby,
who were both in jail. She was defiant, saying that
she was in prison for the sake of hundreds of
girijans, such as Savaras and Jatapus, who were
languishing in jail. Her demand was that
Government should withdraw the cases. This
interview was reproduced in the Liberation
59
magazine, a pro- CPI (ML) publication, edited by
Sashital Ray Chowdhary.
I used to regularly meet Paravada Lakshu Naidu,

who was the lawyer appearing for the CPI (ML)
groups. Once the Police filed a case against 68 tribal
people on a charge of looting at a shandy in
Gummalakshmipuram, and they cited a pair of
dhothis as the material looted! In contrast, when
landlords opened fire on a group of girijans coming
to their house for a demonstration, killing two, Police
said they could not identify who opened fire! From
the affidavits filed in courts at Parvathipuram, I
wrote a number of stories about the Srikakulam
movement, highlighting the utter poverty in the
region, the distress in which the girijans pursued their
livelihood, and the way the developmental programs
all floundered because of lack of linkages. .
I also wrote a column called “Campus Scene” about

the Andhra University. In one column, I wrote that
the Academic Council and Senate of Andhra
60
University disposed of 207 topics in a two day

session, but members failed to discuss the
fundamental problem - about the large number of
failures in University examinations. Of 26,400
students who took the Pre University Course
examination, 18,000 failed. In the B.Sc degree
examination, 3,900 students took the examination
and 2,500 failed. I wrote that “even this per centage
of passes was possible only because of a liberal dose
of moderation”. “Not much independent criticism of
the University policies could be expected from the
Senate because 87 of its 119 members were
nominated. The large mass of University Professors
and College principals have generally taken a passive
attitude to educational problems and sit literally in
the back benches”. The Vice Chancellor, Mr
L.Bullayya, said that the performance of the
“Academic Council was not unsatisfactory”. Asked
why fundamental issues concerning failures do not
figure in the discussions, Mr Bullayya said: “If, as you
say, the College lecturers hold strong views about the
validity of the syllabus and classroom problems, there
61
is no reason why these views should not be reflected
in the Academic Council discussions. We have never
prevented anyone from expressing his views frankly
so far”.
Towards the end of the year 1970, I one day received

a call from our News Editor, R.Parthasarathy, asking
me to proceed to Hyderabad, on transfer. I was
comfortable in Vijayawada, and was just then finding
my feet in coastal Andhra, when they want to
transfer me to Hyderabad!. I tried to resist the
transfer: “Is the Editor not satisfied with my work in
coastal Andhra, Sir”, I asked the News Editor. “No,
he is quite satisfied”, MP replied. “Then why transfer
me to Hyderabad, Sir, I do not fancy working under
H.Venkanna”, I said. “Who said you are going to
work under Venkanna, I say, you are going to head
the bureau there”, said the News Editor. It was very
unusual for a 32 year old reporter being made a
Chief of Bureau in Hyderabad, and I was very happy
at this choice. I wrote a letter to Kasturi, thanking
him for the privelege.
62
We had Mr P.Vaman Rao heading the bureau in

Hyderabad for a long time, but during the Telengana
agitation, Kasu Brahmananda Reddy thought he was
getting a bad press because the IAS officials working
as Directors of Information did not know how to
manage the press, and he invited Vaman Rao to
resign from THE HINDU and head the Information
Department. Vaman Rao was from Karimnagar
area, and he accepted the offer. The choice to head
the bureau was H.Venkanna, the seniormost reporter,
who worked in Kurnool in the past and was
transferred to Hyderabad when it became the State
Capital for the entire State. Venkanna was a
tempermental person and took abrupt decisions that
embarassed THE HINDU. When in 1969 there was a
wild rumour that the river Musi had breached its
banks and was flooding Hyderabad City, people left
what they were doing and were running for cover all
over the City. At that time, Venkanna sent a
teleprinter message to Madras saying that he was
closing down the Hyderabad bureau to save their
lives! Soon it was found that the rumour had no
63
substance and the whole thing turned out to be a big
tamasha. Venkanna was reprimanded for closing
down the office during a crisis, when a newspaper
was expected to function more effectively. And then in
1970, Venkanna was one day reminded by a auto
workshop of a pending bill for Rs 25 for repairs
carried out to the office car. Venkanna lost his cool
and sent a message to Madras office, to “save me
from my creditors”. When this was shown to
Kasturi, he decided to send me to Hyderabad as
Bureau Chief, and I was telephonically instructed to
go to Hyderabad immediately and take charge.
I took THE HINDU Dakota flight and landed in

Begumpet airport to be received by T.Kishore Kumar,
our Circulation Inspector. He became my close
friend and associate in later years. I stayed in my
uncle, S. Ramachandran’s, house in Irrum Manzil
colony. Venkanna talked to me on the telephone, and
came to my house and handed me his Herald car, the
office car for the Chief of Bureau. I engaged a driver
for three months and from him learnt the art of
driving.
64
P V Narasimha Rao
It was a completely different assignment at

Hyderabad, and I found I had to change my mindset
altogether to make a success of my new job as Chief
of Bureau. I felt like a free bird at Vijayawada, there
was no tension in my job, and I could choose my
destination without anyone asking me why I went to
Guntur rather than to Kakinada. Whatever I wrote
was featured well in the newspaper. But at
Hyderabad, I had to plan my daily assignments and
inform the News Editor at Madras who was covering
what assignment, and when to expect the copy at the
desk. I covered the beats of the Secretariat and the
Chief Minister’s office, like the other Chiefs of
Bureau, while my four other colleagues in the
Bureau covered the High Court, Crime, Sports and
so on. There were a number of press conferences and
public meetings daily. Each of us covered at least two
assignments per day.
The Press corps in Hyderabad in 1970 was marked by

bitter divisions, with one group, with D. Sitaram of
UNI and Statesman and G.Rama Rao of Andhra
65
Jyothi, bitterly anti-Brahmananda Reddy, leading one
and dominating the press scene. Sitaram played big
politics, and after Jalagam Vengal Rao became Chief
Minister, he went to his house on the day the Cabinet
was to be sworn in, and insisted on the inclusion of
some of his friends in the Cabinet. Sitaram also went
with Finance Minister, Pidathala Ranga Reddy,
during the latter’s tour of coastal Andhra districts,
and collected funds for his “Skyline” Publication.
Obviously, I was no match for the likes of Sitaram. I

was associated with the other group consisting of
Pullabhatla Venkata Ramana Sarma of Andhra
Patrika and Sham Rao Harnoor of PTI, partly
because our three offices were located within a
kilometre distance, and I used to pick them and go
together to our assignments in my office car. Sarma
and Sham Rao were not pro-Brahmananda Reddy
but they were never aggressive nor did they attempt to
dominate.
Andhra Patrika’s Sarma was quite a character. He
66
used to attend the Congress Legislature Party

meetings, which were not open to the press, and sit in
a corner and apparently go to sleep. Next morning,
Andhra Patrika would carry eight columns of
verbatim report of what went on inside the meeting.
Those were the days when there was no television and
Eenadu was yet to commence publication and
Andhra Patrika was avidly read for its political news.
Sarma worked in Madras, while Andhra was part of

the Madras Presidency, and was shifted to Kurnool in
1953 when it became capital of the Andhra State, and
from there he came to Hyderabad in 1956 when
Andhra Pradesh was constituted. Sarma told me that
before leaving Madras for good, he invited Kamaraj
to his house for tea. Kamaraj was that day elected
Leader of Tamilnadu Congress Legislature Party, but
he came to Sarma’s house and had tea. Sarma could
not conceal his curiosity, and asked Kamaraj whether
he would accomodate his bitter rivals,
M Bhakthavatsalam and C.Subramaniam, in his
Cabinet. “Certainly”, Kamaraj said, adding that he
67
would give each of them half a dozen important
portfolios. Will they not become powerful? “No, this
will pin them down to the Secretariat from morning
till evening and I would be free to play politics”,
Kamaraj replied. Sarma would compare this attitude
with that of Andhra leaders who always sulked
against their rivals. I used to be astonished at the
fact that a powerful leader like Kamaraj chose to
visit the house of a Chief Reporter of a Telugu
Newspaper in Madras, and I wondered whether
Kamaraj went to the houses of the Chiefs of Bureau
of THE HINDU, or Indian Express or the Mail.
Before I came to Hyderabad, there was a controversy

surrounding the Minister, P. Thimma Reddy’s
comment, that “Harijans should be kicked”. I was
told that this was a comment made after the press
conference was over, and only Sitaram reported it for
the Statesman. Sitaram was not present at Thimma
Reddi’s press conference. The Minister made the
comment in the context of an incident at
Kanchikacherla in Krishna district in which a
68
Harijan boy was beaten to death on suspicion that he

stole a valuable from his landlord’s house. This was
a reprehensible incident, Thimma Reddy’s comment
figured in Parliament and a committee was set up to
find out whether the Minister made the comment or
not. I was told that this incident also contributed to
the divisions in the Hyderabad press. The division
manifested itself in verbal duels. My predecessor at
Hyderabad, P. Vaman Rao, left THE HINDU to
become Director of Information, and Sitaram and
Rama Rao usually enjoyed themselves by cutting
jokes at Vaman Rao, and about the nose of Andhra
Patrika Sarma (who was also called Mukku Sarma
because of his slightly curved nose). Though I also
participated in these verbal duels occasionally, I was
considered too young to be subjected to attack.
The separate Telengana agitation had ended when I

came to Hyderabad, though Dr Marri Channa
Reddy, President of Telengana Praja Samithi, was
regularly holding press conferences. It was clear that
Kasu Brahmananda Reddy, the Chief Minister, was
69
on his way out. He became very much devalued
because he was riled and made the subject of ridicule
by Dr Channa Reddy and his Telengana Praja
Samithi activists. But Brahmananda Reddy won the
day because he refused to yield to the demand for his
resignation for nearly a year after the agitation
tapered off.
Dr Channa Reddy was a very abrasive personality. In

a public meeting he would name a Sub Inspector of
Police and issue a warning to him of punishment
when the separate Telengana state was created. He
evoked a sense of fear as a leader of an agitation for
bifurcating the State. The political culture was
vulgarized in the separatist agitation. In 1968 Dr
Channa Reddy lost his job as Union Minister for
Steel in the Indira Gandhi cabinet, after his election
to the State Assembly was set aside on an election
petition filed by Vandemataram Ramachandra Rao,
the Arya Samaj leader. He was debarred from
holding any post for six years, and he returned to
Hyderabad to lead the agitation. Those days, there
70
was a saying in Andhra politics, that “one should

never keep V.B.Raju in and Dr Channa Reddy out of
the Cabinet”, Raju as a Revenue Minister in
Brahmananda Reddi’s cabinet advised the Chief
Minister to resign at the height of the agitation, and
Dr Channa Reddy would start some agitation or
other to occupy himself as he will not keep quiet.
In one of his press conferences, Dr Channa Reddy

suddenly asked me whether G.K. Reddy was the
treasurer of the Congress Party. I was confused
because I did not quickly realise the context.
G.K.Reddy, our famous Political Correspondent,
reported that some of the candidates set up on the
Telengana Praja Samithi tickets in the 1971 Lok
Sabha election were given funds by the Congress
Party. Dr Channa Reddy wanted to deny this. I
informed Sri Kasturi about Dr Channa Reddy’s
denial. Sri Kasturi obviously talked to G.K. Reddy,
and the latter wanted a written statement from Dr
Channa Reddy.
71
I attended the next press conference of Dr Channa
Reddy and he asked me about the correction. I told
him we were waiting for his written statement. He
said he had already sent it to me, and he summoned
A.Madan Mohan, the MLA who later became a
Minister. Madan Mohan said, at first, that he
handed the letter to our office boy and later that the
office was closed when he arrived at our Basheerbagh
office and that he pushed the statement under the
door. This was a blatantly false statement. Those
days we were located in the first floor of a building in
Basheerbagh, and our office functioned till midnight
and opened again at 5 am for the sweepers to clean
the premises. Later I pointed out the discrepancy in
his two versions to Dr Channa Reddy, and he simply
nodded in agreement. We got another statement
from Dr Channa Reddy and published the correction.
In later years I came to know that five of the
candidates set up by Dr Channa Reddy were funded
by the Congress in the elections.
Dr Channa Reddy made his point, by winning 11 out
72
of the 15 Lok Sabha seats in the Telengana region in

the 1971 elections. Telengana Praja Samithi, and not
the Congress, represented the will of the people of
Telengana. There was lot of semantics as to whether
the result could be considered a referendum in favour
of a separate State, but since both Brahmananda
Reddy and Dr Channa Reddy were Congressmen, this
was considered an internal affair of the Party. The
Opposition parties, such as the CPI, CPI (M),
Swatantra, Krishikar Lok Party of G.Latchanna,
could not derive any political benefit out of this
embarassment for Congress.
The fact he continued in office for a year after the

agitation ended made Brahmananda Reddy defiant,
and he made the mistake of asserting that nobody
could remove him from power. In September of 1971,
K. Vijayabhaskara Reddy, as Finance Minister,
asserted in the Assembly that “no power on earth can
replace Brahmananda Reddy”, adding, as if as an
after thought, “as long as he enjoyed the trust of the
House”. The next day, a call came from Indira
73
Gandhi, and Brahmananda Reddy hurried to Delhi
to submit his resignation! Those days rice was in
short supply throughout South India, and there was
demand for boiled rice in Tamilnadu and Kerala.
Rice transport was prohibited from one State to
another, except with a Government permit.
Brahmananda Reddy issued these permits to a
number of rice millers in East and West Godavari
districts, and collected five rupees per quintal towards
a “Party fund”. He went to Delhi and gave some
money to the Party. Indira Gandhi did not believe his
version, and so she ordered simultaneous raids on
rice millers and rice traders in the three Southern
States on the day Brahmananda Reddy reached
Delhi. She confronted him with the reports.
Brahmananda Reddy sought to explain the
discrepancy by saying he used part of the funds to
build the Party in Andhra Pradesh, which was but an
euphemism for the cash he gave to candidates
contesting the 1971 Lok Sabha elections. But he gave
in and resigned.
There was a festive atmosphere on Vijayadasami Day
74
in 1971 when P.V.Narasimha Rao was sworn in as

Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. There was
tremendous relief in the political atmosphere because
Brahmananda Reddy left at the end of more than
seven year term as Chief Minister, and the big
scaffolding of a faction he built up with his followers
at the District and Taluq level collapsed. All the
dissidents in the Congress, who constituted the main
Opposition to the ruling Party, started to return to
the main fold. There was a fund of good will for P.V.
everywhere. But he could not retain it for long.
P.V’s term of office was marked by the domineering

role played by T.Lakshmikantamma, a Member of
Parliament. She was a personal friend, but she
started attending every official meeting that the
Chief Minister held. P.V was also very poor in time
management, he would spend hours with one or two
of his colleagues in gossip, while a 100 others waited
outside to call on the Chief Minister. Further, P.V
suffered from back ache and required to lie down on
a hard surface for relief from pain.
75
A few months after P.V. became Chief Minister,
myself and P.V.R.Sarma of Andhra Patrika went to
the Secretariat to see him. Those days nobody took
an appointment with the Chief Minister, we simply
barged into the CM’s peshi where we had a friend in
Sitapathy, the Security Officer. He used to inform the
Chief Minister on the intercom and we used to walk
in. And so we went into the CM’s chambers.
I distinctly remember that day, because Andhra

Patrika had been publishing reports of the activities
of a group of Ministers from the Andhra region
which showed their misgivings about their future in
the united Andhra Pradesh. P.V. completely ignored
P.V.R.Sarma and spoke to me about maintaining the
unity and integrity of the Telugu speaking people.
That talk was misplaced because we were also for
unity of Telugu people, but the catch was that the
CM wanted us to ignore the news and events
pertaining to the Andhra Ministers in the Cabinet,
because he explained, publication of their point of
view increased tensions and created a divide between
76
the Andhra and Telengana sections and may lead to

division of the State. He in effect wanted us to
report only his side of the story. I explained to him as
best as I could that it would not be possible for any
newspaper which claimed to be independent, to black
out the statements from Andhra Ministers. Sarma
did not say a word, and after about 15 minutes we
came out and Sarma’s only comment was that “he is
in his heart of hearts a separatist. Only outwardly he
talks of unity of Telugu people” How he was able to
come to the conclusion was beyond my
comprehension. Sarma made such comments at the
end of every press conference he covered because he
understood the person very well. “Did you notice the
twinkle in his eye?” Sarma would ask, “that gives him
away”
P.V.Narasimha Rao’s term as Chief Minister was

marked by tension and a feeling of uncertainty. We
saw the separatist Andhra agitation unfold with one
statement after another fuelling the ruffled feelings,
and the Chief Minister watched helplessly as his
77
Cabinet divided on regional lines. After the
separatist Telengana agitation of 1969 and the
replacement of Kasu Brahmananda Reddy as Chief
Minister, P.V. occupied the top post - but only
hesitantly, as if he was unsure of what the Congress
leaders in Delhi wanted him to do. He spent 40 out
of the first 50 days as Chief Minister in Delhi,
constantly seeking advice as to how he should
proceed. He was given a mandate to keep the “Reddy
lobby” in check, but he was afraid to antagonize
powerful Reddy leaders.
In 1972, there were elections to the State Assembly,

and at the instance of Indira Gandhi a host of
important Reddy followers of Brahmananda Reddy
were denied ticket. These powerful people included
Vijayabhaskara Reddy, Seelam Sidda Reddy, Ronda
Narapa Reddy, Kamatam Rami Reddi and
V. Purushotham Reddy. But the exit of
Brahmananda Reddy resulted in the churning of
Congress politics, and opposing factions made up
with each other, resulting in 18 MLAs getting elected
78
without contest, and the Congress winning about 200

seats in the Assembly (out of 294). M.Omkar was
the only CPI (M) candidate to win while the CPI drew
a blank. About 50 Independents won, and most of
them trooped into the Congress fold.
Then the Supreme Court judgment came, upholding

the Mulki rules. PV made his big mistake, by saying
that this gave “finality” to the Mulki issue. This
comment resulted in widespread protests. People
from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions came
to Hyderabad because it was the capital of the united
State of Andhra Pradesh, but in Hyderabad their
children could not seek admission in the Government
Colleges, nor apply for a job in Government service
because these are reserved for “mulkis” that is those
that lived in the Telengana region for atleast 15 years.
The Andhra leaders felt that they were being treated
as second class citizens in Hyderabad. As Chief
Minister, PV should have assuaged their feelings and
clarified their doubts, but he did nothing of that sort.
On the other hand, he promoted the impression that
79
the Andhra leaders were angry with him because he
had the Land Ceiling bill passed by the Assembly, and
that the separatists were out to divide the State. This
argument does not pass muster because the Land
Ceilings acts were passed by all States in the Country,
more or less on the same lines as was done in Andhra
Pradesh.
The State had just seen the end of the separate

Telengana agitation, in which Andhra families were
subjected to humiliation, and a number of families
packed up and went out of Hyderabad. A year later,
the further statements of PV angered the Andhra
leaders and people. One day, there was a Cabinet
meeting and P.V presided over the meeting in the
Cabinet room adjacent to the Chief Minister’s
Chambers in the first floor of the old building. But
the Andhra Ministers did not attend his meeting,
instead they assembled under the leadership of Sagi
Suryanarayaya Raju, the senior most Minister of
Andhra Pradesh, in his chambers in the ground floor
of the same building. The fact that the Cabinet
80
divided was the big news of the day, but PV did not
realise its significance until much later.
The Andhra Ministers decided to write a letter to PV

seeking safeguards in Hyderabad. PV convened
another Cabinet meeting, this time at his residence in
Ananda Nilayam opposite Greenlands Guest House
in Begumpet. (Ananda Nilayam was the official
residence of the Chief Minister, but since
Brahmananda Reddy and PV lost power due to
separatist agitations, the building was considered
unlucky, it was demolished in later years and a
Paryatak Bhavan (Tourist Complex) was constructed
in its place). At the instance of Lakshmikantamma,
a Godman was brought from Amalapuram to
perform pujas on the first floor of the building while
the Cabinet met in the ground floor. The Godman’s
efforts went in vain, and the divisions widened
further.
This signaled the beginning of the separate Andhra

agitation. PV could not cope with it, and he was
unable to tour the Andhra areas fearing a backlash.
81
PV was unable to go to Vijayawada to attend the
funeral of Kakani Venkatarathnam, a senior Andhra
Minister, because the separatist agitators sat on the
runway of the Gannavaram airport to prevent the
Chief Minister’s plane landing there. Non Gazetted
employees went on strike. The Andhra Ministers
then called a meeting of the Andhra MLAs at
Tirupati on December 31 to give a call for a no tax
campaign. B.V.Subba Reddy was the Chairman of
the forum created to achieve a separate Andhra,
while Penchikala Basi Reddy from Pulivendla in
Cuddapah district and Challa Subbarayudu from
Anantapur were the major leaders.
With the divisions in Hyderabad press continuing,

one group which fully supported P.V, took upon itself
the task of demolishing the Dec 31 Tirupati meeting.
The MLAs attendance at Tirupati was solid, but
these journalists whose airfares, taxi fares and hotel
charges were paid by the Government, came to
Tirupati to report that the meeting was a flop
because there were no MLAs present. I went round
82
the Devasthanam choultry where the meeting was

held and reported who was present, the resolutions
they passed, and the exuberant atmosphere in the
venue. The efforts of the pro-PV press to present a
completely distorted picture of the meeting failed,
because of the enormous support of the people.
PV was getting isolated slowly, and the distance

between Indira Gandhi and himself started to grow.
PV was kept in the dark about Indira Gandhi’s plan
to deal with the separatist Andhra agitation. The
Congress constituted a High Power Committee, in the
first week of January, abolishing the Pradesh
Congress Committee, and at its first meeting the
HPC recommended imposition of President’s rule in
the State! PV did not know that such a HPC was
coming, and who would be in it. Only K.Rajamallu
was accommodated in the HPC who could be
considered close to PV. PV was in touch with Sankar
Dayal Sarma who used to come to Andhra Pradesh
as an observer and was assured that there was no
threat to his continuance as Chief Minister. Then on
83
January 8, 1973, PV expanded his Cabinet by taking
eight new Ministers, all “integrationists” such as
Anam Venkata Reddy, R.Rajagopala Reddy and
C.Das. It became difficult for the CM’s office to get
them to Hyderabad because of the agitation. While
the new Ministers were settling down in Lake View
Guest house, the State was brought under President’s
Rule on January 13. PV lost his job, ending a
turbulent period in the State’s history.
Harischandra Sarin, an ICS Officer, came to

Hyderabad to take charge as Advisor to Governor, a
virtual Chief Minister who ran the administration for
11 months. Another ICS Officer, V.K. Rao, was the
Second Advisor, but all power was concentrated in
Sarin’s hands. G.K. Reddy, our Political
Correspondent, correctly predicted in THE HINDU
about Sarin’s choice while the rest of the press
speculated that a Telugu ICS Officer, R.Prasad, was
going to be the Advisor. Sarin brought with him an
official called Mehta, who handled press relations.
Before coming to Hyderabad, Sarin went to
84
G.K.Reddy and asked for tips as to how to deal with

Andhra politicians. G.K.Reddy suggested that he
should see off every politician at the car, and Sarin
followed this advice meticulously. He got on very well
with the politicians of Andhra Pradesh. Sarin’s term
would have been much shorter, but for an incident in
Cuddapah. In March 1973, the Andhra NGOs had a
meeting at the NGO Bhavan in Cuddapah for which
they invited B.V.Subba Reddy and Penchikala Basi
Reddy, the two leaders of separatist Andhra
agitation. It was a meeting organized inside a
private building, but the Collector of the district felt
that it was organised without Police permission, and
he ordered the Police to disburse the NGOs who were
hearing Subba Reddy and Basi Reddy.
The Police made a lathi charge as a peaceful meeting

was in progress inside the NGO building. The
resulting chaos and the injuries to scores of NGOs
was compared to Jalianwala Bagh, because Police
entered through the only door to the small hall and
blocked it, and the NGOs who were beaten up had no
85
chance of escape. With great presence of mind, the
NGOs brought Subba Reddy and Basi Reddi out of
the building by making them scale the compound
wall and thus saved the septugenarian leaders from
injuries. This incident sparked a fresh wave of
protests, and ignited the separatist agitation again,
after it quietened at the end of P.V.Narasimha Rao’s
departure.
I used to call on Sarin once in a while. He occupied

the Lake View Guest house. He consulted several
senior leaders as to how to correct the mistake. He
informally sent messages to the leaders of the
Separate Andhra agitation and the NGOs requesting
them not to precipitate a crisis, and that he would
make amends for the Cuddapah incident. The
agitation, which was about to peter out in February,
dragged on till August but people seemed to have
settled down to a colourless President’s Rule in the
State, which was better than living under a popular
Government with the separate Andhra and separate
Telengana agitations.
86
Jalagam Vengal Rao
It was indeed an honour to me when Jalagam Vengal

Rao, the fifth Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh,
gave me the first copy of his autobiography on
August 21, 1996. We were called for a press
conference, and Vengal Rao suddenly asked me to sit
beside him, and gave me the book “Naa Jeevita
Katha” (My Life’s story), saying: “I am formally
releasing my book by presenting the first copy to
Rajendra Prasad” .
Vengal Rao was a successful Chief Minister, having

risen from the ranks in the Congress politics. He was
born in north Coastal Andhra, but went to school at
Gannavaram in Krishna district, and after his
marriage, settled at Penuballi in Khammam district
and became Khammam Zilla Parishad Chairman in
the 1967. Like many of Congress stalwarts, Vengal
Rao also was very friendly towards his followers but
vindictive towards his opponents. His success as
Chief Minister from December 1973 to March 1978
was partly due to his common sense and partly due
to the Emergency.
87
Vengal Rao had the rare trait of being punctual
would leave his house in Dwarakapuri Colony near
Panjagutta at exactly 8.30 am, and reach secretariat.
He would first call in the Chief Secretary, (first Rao
Saheb Krishnaswamy and later S.R.Rama Murthy),
and get himsef apprised of latest developments. The
next visitor usually was the Inspector General of
Police (Intelligence). Then only other officers and
politicians would follow.
There used to be only nine or 10 reporters covering

his press conference, usually held in his chambers,
and at the end of five minutes of questions, Vengal
Rao would laugh and say “all of you now go, before
you could extract some more information from me”
He knew each of us by name, and sometimes he
would ask: “Why ask such questions at this stage? I
will give you all the information in two or three days’
time” He was quite friendly with the press.
As Chief Minister and later as Union Minister

between 1985-89, Vengal Rao liked me and Inaganti
Venkata Rao of Andhra Jyothi. Whether he was in
88
or out of power, we used to call on him regularly. In

1976, when THE HINDU edition was being launched
at Hyderabad, Kasturi and me went to Vengal Rao
and told him we chose a plot of land on the
Greenlands Public Road, about half an acre in extent,
which would be suitable for our press. Vengal Rao
wished Kasturi good luck, and advised him to think
of another edition at Visakhapatnam along with
Hyderabad. Kasturi thanked him, but said that the
plot we selected was listed in the Master plan as a
“residential” area, and this would have to be
converted into an “Industrial area” to enable THE
HINDU to print there. “That will not be a problem.
Go ahead with your civil works, and the change of
the plot to industrial use will come about in course of
time”, Vengal Rao said. He kept his promise and
gave the necessary notification. Our Visakhapatnam
edition finally came up only in 1991. Vengal Rao was
Chief Guest at the function for the launch of THE
HINDU’s Hyderabad edition in September, 1976,
while the actual launch was done by R.D.Bhandare,
Governor.
89
We made elaborate preparations for the launch of
our edition, with a big shamiana in the office
compound, and we prepared for a high tea to be
hosted to our guests who were carefully selected from
various walks of life. Kasturi was very meticulous in
these things. We had G.K.Reddy, our political
correspondent in Delhi, K.S.Shelvankar, a former
London Correspondent of THE HINDU who later
served as an Ambassador to the Soviet Union and
Vietnam, and a large number of bureau chiefs from
various parts of the Country attending the function.
At about 4 pm, while we were busy with the
preparations, a big rain lashed the town, and the
shamiana collapsed. There was one foot water in our
compound.
The rain stopped around 4.30 pm. There was hardly

30 minutes for us to make alternate arrangements for
the function. We immediately shifted the venue to
inside the office, and arranged chairs for the guests.
All staff, including Kasturi, G.K.Reddy, and
Shelvankar, preferred to stand. At the function,
90
Vengal Rao paid tributes to the role played by THE

HINDU in the freedom struggle, and to the paper’s
commitment to objectivity in its coverage. I had the
privilege of proposing a vote of thanks. After the
function, the Governor and the VIPs were taken to the
printing press where the Governor formally pressed
the button to print our Sunday Magazine section.
The rotary started well but soon the paper got into
the conveyor, became a pulp, and the press stopped as
the pulp acted as a drag. G.K.Reddy suggested that
tea be served to the guests while they waited for the
press to re-run. Finally after a delay of 30 minutes,
the Sunday Magazine came out and we all heaved a
sigh of relief.
Vengal Rao was an outspoken person and he was

endowed with good commonsense. Though he only
completed his schooling, he was regarded as a good
administrator and was frequently compared to
Kamaraj. He became Chief Minister at the end of
the President’s Rule in December, 1973. Dr Channa
Reddy was opposed to him, and proposed the name
91
of a former Chief Minister, Damodaram Sanjivayya,
but when Reddy called on Indira Gandhi during the
transition, she said: “I had two names in 1971,
P.V.Narasimha Rao’s and Vengal Rao’s. You
opposed Vengal Rao’s name then, and we chose P.V.
Now, I have only one name for consideration. You
please accept Vengal Rao”. Vengal Rao came to
power at the end of the seperate Andhra agitation.
When Dr Shankar Dayal Sarma arrived in
Hyderabad to chose a consensus candidate, all the
Andhra MLAs told him “anyone but Vengal Rao”,
but such was the Consensus politics in Congress that
Vengal Rao was declared the unanimous choice.
His term in office was marked by the World Telugu

Conference organised on a grand scale at
Hyderabad, to offset the effect of the two separatist
agitations. Vengal Rao picked up officers for
postings based on their initiative and drive. When he
went on tour, he would first call the District Collector
and talk to him about the problems he faced in the
district, then only he called the politicians. Then in
92
1975, the Emergency came, but Vengal Rao softened

the impact of Emergency in Andhra Pradesh.
With Emergency came censorship. At first, District

Collectors were designated as Censoring Officers,
and the officer at Vijayawada went to such an extent,
he would not approve of reports in THE INDIAN
EXPRESS even though the Censor at Delhi had
cleared it. Whole items were lifted out of the paper
by the Censor, who harassed the paper by approving
the copy only at 2 am, to disrupt their network of
distribution. All of us Chiefs of Bureau went in
delegation to the Chief Minister and complained to
him about this behavior. Vengal Rao understood the
plight of the press, and he immediately made an
Assistant Director of Information as a Censor officer,
which solved the problem.
On November 19, 1977, there was a mighty tidal

wave disaster at Divi in Krishna district, which took a
toll of 10,000. Vengal Rao was in Delhi when the
tidal wave struck, but a day later he was back in
Krishna and Guntur districts to see the devastation.
93
“This is a tragedy beyond comparison”, he said, “We
have to gear up our entire resources to render
assistance”.
Vengal Rao did the job well, but his critics were not
satisfied. They complained about his being away
from the State when the calamity struck. Also, the
commander of the Southern Command of the Armed
Forces was in Puttaparthi and was not available for
contact while the Chief Secretary was out of station.
The Janata had come to power, and Vengal Rao was
hammered. But Morarji Desai brushed aside
demand for dismissal of Vengal Rao’s Government.
We were present at the airport as Morarji Desai
came out of the special aircraft, and a large number
of Janata MLAs and activists surrounded, shouting
that Vengal Rao should go and the State placed
under President’s Rule. Morarji Desai simply walked
past this crowd, saying that “it is not as easy as you
think”. Morarji did not accept an official’s figure of
9,987 for the death toll. “How can you be so precise?
I can accept if you say there were 10,000 deaths or
9,000 deaths” he said.
94
Vengal Rao noticed that it was necessary to present

the nation a true picture of the devastation, because
death tolls published varied from one lakh to 10,000
and an issue was made of dead bodies lying in the
villages. A friendly and competent officer from the
Information Department, C.V.Narasimha Reddy, was
brought to the CM”s office to deal with the press,
and he took the press into confidence by daily issuing
statements about the actual state of the relief
operations. Vengal Rao drafted the workmen from
Singareni Colleries to burn the dead bodies.
Then the Congress split in December, 1977 when

Indira Gandhi launched the Congress (I). Vengal
Rao made a wrong choice, when he led his group to
contest on the Congress (Reddy) ticket and lost the
elections. He was in touch with Charan Singh, the
Union Home Minister, and thought Indira Gandhi
would not rise again if she were to be arrested. He
lost the 1978 elections to the Assembly without a
contest, because his group contesting under the
Congress (R) tickets could win only 39 seats out of
95
the 294. Vengal Rao was forced to spend a week at
his Sattupalli constituency, where a poet, Kaloji
Narayana Rao, contested against him as an
Independent candidate, with civil liberties groups
singing songs in his constituency about the fake
encounters in which the Police killed naxalites of
Srikakulam. Though he won from Sattupalli ,
resigned his seat in the Assembly and encouraged all
the others who won on the Congress (R) ticket to
migrate to Congress (I). Dr. Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy,
who became Chief Minister in 2004, was one of those
who went to the Congress (I) this way.
The Janata Government instituted two Commissions

of enquiry against Vengal Rao, ,but the Commission,
instituted to enquire into fake encounters, was a non-
starter. P. Shivshankar, who appeared for Vengal
Rao before the Commission, insisted that these
should be taken up in serial order while the Civil
Liberties groups wanted only some encounters to be
investigated, and they brought a list. The second
Commission found fault with Vengal Rao for
96
creating a helipad for Sanjay Gandhi’s helicopter to

land in Kothagudam, though he held no official
position. After the Commission’s findings came out,
Vengal Rao announced his retirement from politics.
Vengal Rao came back to politics again in February

1984 while N.T.Rama Rao was Chief Minister, and
scripted Nadendla Bhaskara Rao’s backstabbing
episode during August, 1984. Vengal Rao however
played an active role after Rajiv Gandhi became
Prime Minister, towards the end of 1984, convincing
him that he was the only Congress leader capable of
fighting NTR. He became President of Andhra
Pradesh Congress Committee, and the next step was
to become Union Industries Minister. He initiated a
vicious campaign against NTR, saying he can kick
“NTR like a football, and he will fall in Madras” As
Union Minister from 1985 to 1989, his only job was
to keep NTR pinned down to Andhra Pradesh and
not play a major role in uniting the Opposition
against the Congress.
97
One day, Vengal Rao called me and gave me a note
prepared by the Income Tax department, supposed to
be a list of violations of the law committed by
Ramoji Rao, Editor of EENADU Telugu newspaper.
“I do not expect you to report these things but you
should know the background. Local Congressmen
say that I have done nothing to build the Party during
the past three years that I headed the Pradesh
Congress Committee. But I have successfully tied
down N.T.Rama Rao in several court cases and
pinned him down to Hyderabad. Otherwise, he
would have started Bharatha Desam or tried to unite
Opposition parties and groups. We have to strike at
Ramoji Rao also because he is the principal
supporter of NTR in the State. We are going to
shortly launch 16 or 17 prosecutions against Ramoji
Rao”.
Nothing much came out of these prosecutions,

because Ramoji Rao asserted that these prosecutions
were launched to harass him for supporting NTR,
and that they were of a frivolous nature. A total of
98
19 prosecutions were launched in the entire Country

from April to December 1987, while in respect of
Eenadu group alone, 24 prosecutions were launched
between March and July 1988, which established the
malafide intention of the Government. The counsel
for Ramoji Rao said that the charges were of a
baseless nature, the maximum punishment being
fines ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 2,000.
One day when I went to see him in the morning, he

asked me what was going on in Hyderabad. I told
him that the Chief Minister, N.T.Rama Rao, was
organising a workshop on collection of taxes the next
day, and that the Chairman of the Central Board of
Direct Taxes was coming. “How can he come?’
Vengal Rao asked, “NTR is a tax defaulter”. So
saying, he spoke to Delhi and had the official’s visit
to Hyderabad cancelled.
Once, he became angry with me for a report I wrote

suggesting that the Telugu Desam candidate,
Chekuri Kasiah, might get an edge in the election to
the Chairman of Khammam Zilla Parishad because
99
NTR was touring the district on the last day of the
campaign. Vengal Rao’s son, Prasada Rao, was
pitted against him as the Congress (I) candidate.
“How will Kasiah get any advantage even after
NTR’s tour” Vengal Rao asked, “people of
Khammam know Kasiah inside out, there is not a
single party in which he did not function”. Later,
when counting of votes was taking place, and Kasiah
established a comfortable lead, Vengal Rao
telephoned. “I am not getting any information from
Khammam. What is your information?” he asked. I
realised that his son, who was in Khammam, was
avoiding telling him about his impending defeat. I
decided to tell him what we get from our Khammam
correspondent, that Kasiah had established a
commanding lead of 20,000 votes and was sure to
win. Vengal Rao did not make any comment and
hung up, saying “that is alright”.
Vengal Rao wrote in his autobiography that “it was

the misfortune of the nation that a person like
Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister. He was
100
Chief Minister for one and half years, but only in

name, because he was at the beck and call of
Lakshmikantamma, an MP”. Vengal Rao wrote that
Vijayabhaskara Reddy was a “stubborn person, who
did not know how to talk in politics”. Vengal Rao
regretted the fact that his prediction about
Vijayabhaskara Reddy handing over power to
N.T.Rama Rao in 1994 elections “on a golden
platter”, had come true, after doing so in a silver
platter in 1983. On both occasions, Vijayabhaskara
Reddy was Chief Minister, who handed over power to
NTR. About Brahmananda Reddy, Vengal Rao
wrote about the rice scandal in which lot of money
was collected by Brahmananda Reddy, how his
reputation was in shambles after Reddy was forced to
give all that money to the AICC. “After this incident,
Damodaram Sanjivayya who was AICC President
then, telephoned to me one day and said that
Congress Working Committee was deciding to
remove Brahmananda Reddy and asked me to listen
to the 9 pm news bulletin. This was the first headline
that night. But Reddy did not know about it and was
101
enjoying himself at a cultural programme”, Vengal
Rao wrote.
It was unfortunate that Vengal Rao was forced to

withdraw his book from circulation because of a
threatened legal action against him. He had
mentioned about Justice Shah of Allahabad High
Court unseating Indira Gandhi’s election that led to
the imposition of Emergency. Vengal Rao wrote only
what he believed to be the truth, but the Judge , who
retired from service, took offence at the way the
scrappy reports about the book pictured the event, on
which Justice Shah formed his judgment. The Judge
criticised Vengal Rao for not revealing the name of
the person who made the statement, and to whom the
letter was sent, but in his book, Vengal Rao identified
the letter writer as M.V.S.Subbaraju, MLA, and that
the letter was written to Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, the
future President. In his letter Subba Raju predicted
Indira Gandhi’s election getting annulled. Vengal
Rao wrote that when the Inspector General of Police
(Intelligence), K.Vijayarama Rao, brought him the
post card, he had it sent to the Director of Central
102
Bureau of Investigation, asking the officer to bring it

to the notice of the Prime Minister, but the officer did
not act. When the final judgment, setting aside
Indira Gandhi’s election came, Vengal Rao said he
was in Delhi and told Indira Gandhi about the letter,
that she called the CBI man and admonished him for
failing to pass it on to her.
Vengal Rao died a disappointed man. He used to sit

alone in his house, looking vacantly into the ceiling
when I used to go and meet him. He would talk
cordially with me, asking about details of events in
which he was interested. He went twice to Kerala
and Bangalore to reduce his weight because he
became obese towards the end of his life. He felt
lonely since the death of his wife, Mangayamma.
When she suffered a heart attack, Vengal Rao was
Chief Minister, and he would come and spend an
hour at the Osmania General Hospital, during the
treatment, sitting in the Superintendent’s room. The
Hospital Superintendent’s Office functioned those
days as the Chief Minister’s Office.
103
He had two sons, Jalagam Prasada Rao and
Jalagam Venkat Rao. The elder one served as an
MLA and Minister and went in adoption to Captain
Jalagam Rama Rao, Vengal Rao’s brother who
served in the Indian Navy, and later set up a plant to
produce palm oil in Chirala and Integrated Circuits
in Hyderabad. When Vengal Rao died, the last rites
were performed by the younger son, Venkata Rao.
Vengal Rao admired Sardar Vallabhai Patel, and

dedicated his book to the Sardar. He admired Patel
for the role he played in integrating the old
Hyderabad State into the Indian Union, and for the
Police action in liberating the Nizam’s Hyderabad.
He had always with him a copy of Sardar Patel’s
speeches which he read frequently. The politicians
of his generation were men of clay, he would say,
asserting that Sardar Patel, Nehru and Mahatma
Gandhi were the real heroes.
104
Dr Channa Reddy’s two terms as

Chief Minister
While Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy as Chief Minister
twice handed over power to Telugu Desam, first in
1983 and then in 1994, Dr Marri Channa Reddy
twice brought the Congress (I) to power as APCC
President. On March 6, 1978, Dr Channa Reddy
became Chief Minister after Vengal Rao’s defeat,
and again in September, 1989, he became Chief
Minister after NTR lost power in the general
election.
Dr Channa Reddy’s first term as Chief Minister was

marked by intense dissident activity and his
innovative ideas in administration. He changed
timings of Government offices from 7.30 am to 1.30
pm, on the ground employees would be fresh in the
mornings and would work with greater efficiency,
raised the age of retirement of Government servants
from 55 years to 58 and announced a new syllabus
with the ideas of Puttaparthi Sri Saibaba for schools.
The new office timings did not work, they were in
force for four months only, and in October, 1979, they
were revised to 9.30 am to 5 pm. The new school
105
syllabus was given up following opposition from
teachers organisations. As soon as he became the
Chief Minister, he announced that his oral orders
should be treated as Government Orders, and we saw
the unique spectacle of District Collectors sitting in a
corner at the CM’s public meetings and taking down
copious notes of all he was saying, because the Chief
Minister would ask for “a report with in 24 hours”
and since this was a GO, they have to comply with it.
But after some time the novelty was lost and everyone
forgot about this new rule.
Dr Channa Reddy occupied the Greenlands Guest

House and proclaimed it as the Chief Minister’s
official residence. He would sit in his room
surrounded by his favourite followers, joking,
laughing, and discussing, oblivious of the time flying
by. The big halls and spacious lawns were always full
of people who wanted to see him and officers whom
he sent for. If the Chief Secretary and a Deputy
Secretary were waiting in the hall, Dr Channa Reddy
would first call the Deputy Secretary in, to spite the
106
Chief Secretary. People had to enter their names in a

register if they wanted to see him, and the Chief
Minister would tick the names of those he wished to
see. “People want to see me for the fun of it”, he
would say later, “One gentleman said he was going
to Bombay and wanted to inform me of the fact.
What does it matter to me whether he goes to
Bombay or London”, the Chief Minister said. “I
think people would come to inform me that their
cycle had a puncture” he laughed.
As a leader who organised a massive public agitation

for separate Telengana for one year, Dr Channa
Reddy was expected to deal with public agitations
with a firm hand. But his term of office was marked
by a series of communal incidents which he could not
control. Within three weeks of his becoming Chief
Minister, there was an incident in which Rameeza Bee
was raped and her husband was beaten to death in
the Adikmet Police station, resulting in a mass
violence. Police opened fire at 11 places on one day in
Hyderabad when the City observed a bandh, killing
107
nine people and injuring 80. Dr Channa Reddy said
that Rameeza Bee was a woman of “doubtful
character”, as if that made the rape a less serious
offence. This was followed by a communal violence
in Sabzimandi area, when it was placed under curfew
after two people were killed in mob violence.
He believed in astrology and vasthu and paid

obeisance to a number of gurus and holy men. He
called on the Sathya Sri Saibaba of Puttaparthi
before the elections, and was told he was coming to
power. This gave him enormous self confidence. He
confidently asserted that his party would win 175
seats (out of 294) and it did! One local baba gave
him a stick which he carried for the rest of his life,
and people called it a magic wand. The advisors
convinced him that the communal incidents were due
to the “bad vasthu” of Greenlands, and so he shifted
his residence to his own home in Taranaka. But the
communal violence and political problems continued
to haunt him, as long as he was Chief Minister.
Asked why his term was turbulent, he said that
108
wherever he was, there was a storm around him. In

1978 when Dr Channa Reddy became Chief Minister,
Indira Gandhi was out of power at the Centre, and
the All India Congress (I) Committee depended upon
the Congress (I) Governments in Andhra Pradesh and
Karnataka for its financial sustenance. Dr Channa
Reddy regularly used to send money to Delhi, but this
became bazaar talk in Hyderabad, and he got a bad
name. The bad image was attributed to the “bad”
press that Channa Reddy got, and several people
came on the scene to “manage” the press. These
included Sarojini Pulla Reddy, a Minister, who one
day turned up at the Press Room at Secretariat, was
surprised that the reporters had to buy coffee at the
canteen, and ordered that a sumptuous spread be laid
out for the journalists as they came to report the
Secretariat beat. The regulars did not much fancy
this, but lot of journalists with accreditations but no
paper to report benefited by her generosity.
One day, a man turned up from Sunday magazine, to

write an article on Dr Channa Reddy. The followers
109
of Dr Reddy came to know of this, and they wanted
to show the Chief Minister how a little attention
could make a big difference. The man was treated
as a State Guest and put up in the Lake View Guest
House, an officer of Information Department was
attached to him, and a car was placed at his
disposal. The Chief Minister granted him a personal
interview. The man, who spent two days traveling in
auto rickshaws, spent four days in luxury sight
seeing. We were told that an adulatory article would
appear in Sunday.
The issue came out with Dr Reddy on the cover, with

the caption: “Channa Reddy: The Most Corrupt
CM?”. The author wrote that he took an
autorickshaw to go to a middle class hotel from the
airport, but the driver demanded five rupees more
than the meter reading as he had to pay “a
commission to the CM!” Dr Reddy’s followers cut a
sorry figure. Then they focused their attention on
the local newspapers. One contractor gave Rs 15,000
to three people to manage the local press, and placed
110
a car at their disposal. This came to light quite

accidentally while T.Anjiah was Chief Minister, and
as Minister for Irrigation, G.V.Sudhakara Rao placed
the contractor’s letter in the Assembly. The
contractor wrote to Dr Reddy that he spent lot of
money on erecting banners for his tours, paid money
to manage the press, but the Chief Minister was not
granting him an interview. The names of the three
people who received the money was not revealed.
Dr Channa Reddy was a strict person, and wanted to

enforce discipline in the Party and Government. One
fine morning, he stripped the portfolios of two of his
Ministers, M.Manick Rao and Kandula Obul Reddy,
the first for going, without his permission, to
Moscow on a peace delegation and the other for
going to Kerala for ayurvedic treatment. He restored
their portfolios later, after they met him and
apologised. A dissident group in the Congress
already was working against Dr Reddy with
encouragement from Sanjay Gandhi who was then a
power to reckon with.
111
There was a turning point in Dr Reddy’s life, when he
survived a plane accident in December, 1979. He was
going to Delhi, when the plane after take off,
suddenly lost its height, and crashed near the end of
the runway. Dr Channa Reddy was shaken by this
experience. But he managed to somehow jump out of
the aircraft and his followers stopped private cars on
Trimulgery road and sent him home. Soon a crowd
gathered on the runway, attracted by 100 rupee
bundles strewn all over the place, as one of the
suitcase carried by a passenger opened. People
snatched the bundles and vanished from the scene
until the Police came and cordoned off the area. The
Indian Airlines later advertised inviting the passenger
to identify the suitcase and claim whatever cash was
left, but nobody turned up.
Dr Channa Reddy saw the accident as a divine sign,

and felt that he should show his gratitude to the
divine power. He was saved because he had some
task to finish. He proclaimed that he was dedicating
his life to the service of the poor. But in January,
112
1980, he celebrated his shastipoorthi with a series of

grand functions to propitiate the Gods for his second
life, with a tulabharam in his native village of Pedda
Mangalaram in Ranga Reddy district, where he was
weighed against one rupee coins. This was followed
by a second tulabharam in Hyderabad and a third in
Eluru. At each of these functions, the garlanding
alone went on for over an hour. All this attracted
public criticism, as people did not approve such
display of grandeur, and the Delhi telephone lines
were kept busy as the dissidents in the party informed
the Central leaders of the “style of functioning” of
the Chief Minister.
Those days, G. Rajaram, the Minister for Finance,

was the dissident leader and a number of Ministers
and MLAs met at his residence in Himayatnagar
daily to chalk out a strategy to oust Dr Reddy. They
were constantly in touch with Delhi. One day in May
1980, the personal staff of the Chief Minister opened
a box of sweets given by a visitor and distributed
sweets among themselves and a few MLAs present,
113
including a R.M.Manohar. This Manohar called
himself a “Brigadier” Manohar, head of the “Indira
Brigade”, and he had the distinction of winning from
Achampet in Mahbubnagar district, even without
visiting the constituency, due to the Indira wave.
About half an hour later, there was a flash on the
Press Trust of India teleprinter announcing the death
of Sanjay Gandhi in a flying accident in Delhi! Soon
Police blocked all seats on the Indian Airlines flight to
Delhi to enable Congress leaders to go for the
funeral.
Manohar, who went to Delhi, told Prime Minister

Indira Gandhi that Channa Reddy distributed sweets
to celebrate Sanjay Gandhi’s death! Obviously this
made a deep impression on her, because within two
days, dissident Ministers in Hyderabad got the signal
to step up their campaign against Channa Reddy.
The dissident MLAs showed their strength to the
press at the official residence of Obul Reddy in
Khairatabad. Channa Reddy knew that his time was
up, but he put on a brave face, and dismissed the
dissident activity as of no consequence.
114
In June, every one was convinced that a new CM was

going to take charge, but the question was when.
T.Anjiah was chosen as successor, but he made the
mistake of revealing this to some of his friends, who
came to his house in Delhi with big garlands in front
of TV cameras. The madam was angry and delayed
the announcement. The political atmosphere became
heavy. G. Rajaram described this as the period spent
by a family with the dead body in the verandah of
the house waiting for the son’s arrival to perform the
last rites. This period, in Dr Channa Reddy’s case,
prolonged to about three months.
One day Dr Channa Reddy returned from Delhi and

met the press at the airport. One journalist, Narisetti
Inniah, asked whether an officer of Central
Intelligence conveyed any message to him inside the
aircraft. This question completely put out Dr
Channa Reddy, and he repeatedly asked the
journalist to explain, or say what he knew. “You give
me the message, I will take it from you”, Dr Reddy
said. As we came to know later, Dr Channa Reddy
115
wanted to announce his resignation at the airport,
and go to the Raj Bhavan and submit his letter. But
after he got into the aircraft, someone in Delhi had
second thoughts, and so, after the plane landed in
Hyderabad, a CIO met the Chief Minister on board
the aircraft and told him: “Don’t meet the press,
don’t go to Raj Bhavan”.
One day in his usual durbar, some one mooted the

proposal to create a rift in the dissident camp. As
part of this proposal, a manager from Deccan
Chronicle met Rajaram and talked to him about his
chances of succeeding Dr Channa Reddy. Rajaram
kept an open house, and he offered a cup of tea to
whoever came to him and talked. That evening,
M.M.Hashim, the Home Minister, telephoned to
Rajaram and told him that he had fallen into a trap,
and his interview was sure to divide the dissident
camp! Rajaram said he gave no interview to Deccan
Chronicle. “Arre, I have seen it with my own eyes, the
galley proof they brought from the press and it is sure
to put you in a hole”, Hashim said. Rajaram checked
116
with his staff and made sure no reporter from

Chronicle met him that day. Later in the night, he
talked to an Editor in charge at Deccan Chronicle
and told him a fabricated interview was going to be
published, and if it appeared in print, there would be
serious consequences. The Editor-in charge saw the
Reporters’ file but there was nothing, but later he was
shown the galley proof of an interview nobody knew
who did. The Editor in charge, who could not
imagine a Manager would have done the interview,
removed the story from the page. Next day it was the
turn of M.M.Hashim and Channa Reddy’s camp to
be surprised, and the aborted interview became the
talk of the town.
Dr Channa Reddy misjudged the power behind the

dissidents. He thought it was the two Central
Ministers from Andhra Pradesh, and would say: “I
will wait till a new man takes over from me here, and
the game they played against me, I can also play
against them”. But Dr Channa Reddy did not get to
play the role of a dissident leader, for he went as
117
Governor to several States like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab,
Rajasthan and Tamilnadu.
He was a bitterly disappointed man while leaving

office. He was convinced that the press was biased
against him. He said he wanted all the press
clippings placed before an independent Judge and a
verdict given whether the coverage was objective. He
served the State as Chief Minister for two and half
years, from March, 1978 to September, 1980.
His second term as Chief Minister, from November

1989 to December 1990, was marked by the most
serious communal clashes that Hyderabad witnessed,
in which 75 people were killed, the old City of
Hyderabad was handed over to the Army, and an
Assistant Commissioner of Police, Sattiah, was killed
by a Muslim constable sitting in his own jeep. Also,
his health suffered a set back, and he went to the
United States for a kidney transplant and eye surgery.
Dr Channa Reddy assumed office before a big crowd

in Nizam College grounds, in the tradition set up by
118
N.T.Rama Rao, who took his oath of office in Lal

Bahadur Sdtadium in 1983. Dr Reddy’s first
announcement was to withdraw the rule, introduced
by NTR earlier, making the wearing of helmets
compulsory for scooter drivers! Soon, the Peoples
War naxalites abducted Mandava Venkateswara
Rao, a Telugu Desam MLA from Nizamabad
district, and his wife went on a fast, demanding her
husband’s release. The naxalites came up with a
bargain, demanding release of PW prisoners in jail
for freedom for the Telugu Desam MLA. Dr Channa
Reddy went a step further, and released all Naxalite
prisoners in jail, so that there would be no more
abductions! He also announced a Rs 65 crore remote
area development project to counter the Naxalite
violence.
His son, Ravinder Reddy, donated the kidney for his

father, and the surgery was performed in the U.S. Dr
S.Gopalkishan, Professor of Nephrology in Osmania
General Hospital, went with the Chief Minister to
oversee the surgery. Dr Channa Reddy was 70 years
119
old at that time, but he withstood the surgery very
well. He ran the State administration from the US,
and maintained that he had such a grip on the
Government set up that his presence in Hyderabad
was not required. He was however irked by the fact
that his Minister for Health, N. Srinivasulu Reddy,
issued daily health bulletins, which got him adverse
publicity. He stripped him of the portfolio.
When Dr Channa Reddy returned from the U.S, the

Ministers in his cabinet were in a dilemma. They
wanted to go to Delhi and greet the Chief Minister,
who they knew, was very particular in these gestures,
but Rajiv Gandhi, as a former Prime Minister, was
touring the flood affected areas of the State. As if to
embarrass the Ministers, Rajiv Gandhi extended his
tour of the districts by one day. About a dozen
Ministers accompanied Rajiv Gandhi in this tour, but
all but one, V.Hanumantha Rao, deserted the
Congress (I) President and went to Delhi to greet Dr
Channa Reddy. Hanumantha Rao checked air
timings and told his colleagues that they could be
120
with Rajiv Gandhi till the end, and still receive Dr

Channa Reddy when he returns, but they would not
listen. Rajiv Gandhi got a rude shock because he saw
the Andhra Ministers showing that they cared more
for Dr Channa Reddy in power, than they cared for
Rajiv Gandhi out of power.
The communal vilolence began on December 7, 1990

with stabbings, and the toll rose to 47 by the next day.
Twenty five people were fatally stabbed in two hours
from 7 pm. Police opened fire at 11 places in the old
City areas of Hyderabad, and Dr Channa Reddy,
who visited the affected areas, could not proceed
because of continuing violence. The disturbance was
a sequel to the attack on Majid Khan, a Majlis
Ittehadul Muslimeen worker, who was injured in the
attack, but the main accused, a Ramesh, was killed
in retalliation. On Dec 9, the old city areas were
handed over to the Army, for the first time in
Hyderabad, because Police were unable to enforce
curfew and armed gangs freely roamed the streets.
Dr Channa Reddy saw a pattern in the violence, and
121
he had information that gangs from Vijayawada
were requisitioned by Congress MLAs to create and
sustain communal violence in order to force him out
of power. Violence continued unabated for the next
five days.
On Dec 12, Dr Channa Reddy went to the Osmania

General Hospital and saw a one year old baby
stabbed in the stomach. This sight moved him, and
he became introspective. In the night, he told his
regular group of followers that he will resign as Chief
Minister. “They are doing all this just to send me
out! I will oblige them and save some lives”, he told
them. He actually resigned on December 16, keeping
in view astrological considerations. The Congress
Legislature Party meeting to elect a new leader was
called, not by Dr Channa Reddy, the outgoing leader,
but by V.Hanumantha Rao, the APCC President. Dr
Reddy sent his letter of resignation to the Governor
through a messenger at night.
While going out of office, Dr Channa Reddy lacked

grace, and he filled up the posts of chairmen of 22
122
corporations at the very last minute. One person,

appointed Chairman of Tirumala Tirupati
Devasthanam, came to the Secretariat on a Second
Saturday, a holiday, picked up the typewriter from a
General Administration Department, took it to the
house of a Section Officer who had to type the order,
got it signed, and went to Tirupati on a Sunday to
assume charge. In the confusion, one G.
Sathyanarayana of Secunderabad took charge as a
trustee before the deity, while another
Sathyanarayana, a tax consultant, was nominated,
and it took a lot of effort to persuade the wrong
Sathyanarayana to resign!
123
News Behind News
One day in 1985, I was quietly working on an article

in my office when there was a call from the Secretary
to the Governor, V.Chandramowli, IAS. He asked me
whether I could come down to the Raj Bhavan “for a
good story”. I immediately went. He gave a sheaf of
papers which he said was the text of the Governor, Dr
Shankar Dayal Sharma’s, speech at the Governors
Conference held in Delhi a few days ago. The news
was that the Governor made critical references to the
Telugu Desam Government.
Chandramowli put only one condition - that he

should not be identified as the source of the story. I
returned to office and talked to my Editor, Kasturi,
and told him about the Governor’s speech. He asked
me only one question - was the officer dependable? I
said yes. And so it was that next day we published a
five column report titled “A.P.Governor hits out at
Govt”. The Governor’s theme was that a regional
party which comes to power always makes some
noise for a larger share of central resources, but it
does not share Plan resources equitably with
124
panchayat raj bodies. If this attitude continues, there

is likely to be upsurge of popular sentiments,
demanding that zilla parishads, panchayat raj and
other local bodies be directly monitored by Central
Government to avoid diversion of funds. Dr Sharma
also wanted Governors to send confidential reports
on all-India service officers to the President, in the
case of undue harassment of such officers on political
grounds.
The next morning, July 10, 1985, I first got a call

from U.B.Raghavendra Rao, Principal Secretary to
Chief Minister, asking whether the story was true.
He was one of the finest officers in the IAS, known
for excellent clarity of thought, and he was a friend.
I told him that I got the sheaf of papers from
Chandramowli himself who asked for its publication.
Then Chief Minister N.T.Rama Rao, deputed an
Inspector General of Police (Intelligence) to go to the
Governor and get the copy of the speech.
Chandramowli was on the line next, asking for the
text of the speech to be returned to him as the
125
Governor was asking for it!. I told him I will give it
back to him on my way to the office at 10.30 am, but
the officer was in a hurry, and offered to send a
messenger in a car to get the copy. It was 8 am, but I
told him I have some work to do and that I will give
the copy by 9 am. I went to a xerox centre and took a
copy of the speech, and went to Raj Bhavan to hand
over the copy to Chandramowli. He said that his job
was at stake, and the Governor did not like the way
the speech was reported, and he wanted the speech to
be mentioned only in a Sunday column I used to write
those days. I told him that my job also was at stake,
and suggested to him to give me a letter saying that
he himself gave the copy of the speech to me, and I
promised to show that letter to no one except the
Editor. He agreed to do so. But he never kept that
promise.
The Governor’s retraction came in the course of the

day, and I immediately sent it to Editor for his
approval. I asked Editor’s permission to make a
point which could be published along with the
126
retraction, and he approved. So along with the

Governor’s retraction, we published the following:
“Our Correspondent writes: The text of the
Governor’s speech at the Delhi conference last week
was made available to THE HINDU by
unimpeachable sources which said the Governor
himself had authorised its publication”.
The first call I received the next morning was from

NTR: “You have courageously published the
Governor’s speech and today you have stood by your
report. THE HINDU is really a great paper”.
On July 11, there was a conference at the Jubilee

Hall, in which the Chief Minister discussed the
demand of Rayalaseema Congress MLAs, including
Dr Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy (who later became Chief
Minister in 2004), Dr M.V.Mysura Reddy,
J.C.Diwakara Reddy among others, that the Krishna
water for Telugu Ganga project should be
apportioned from the “assured” share of the Krishna
waters for Andhra Pradesh. The catch was that the
800 TMC assured waters share was already equitably
127
distributed among existing projects, and the
Government showed the allocation of 29 TMC
Krishna water for Telugu Ganga from the “surplus”
in Krishna River. The Congress MLAs wanted to
push the Telugu Desam Government into a trap, to
force NTR to cut the allocation for Krishna delta to
accommodate the Telugu Ganga share.
After the meeting there was the press conference in

which some reporter asked about Governor’s criticism
of the State Government. NTR replied: “I do not
know whether the Governor really made these
comments or not. But since he has denied it himself, I
don’t think it is proper for me to enter into a debate
with him on this issue”.
That was how I became unwittingly a centre of

controversy. It was obvious that I did not imagine the
Governor would object to his views being published
as I thought he was a man with courage of
convictions. The views were in tune with Dr Shankar
Dayal Sharma’s known views against regional
parties and in tune with the views of Rajiv Gandhi
128
who was the Prime Minister. Probably this was the

speech that Dr Sharma delivered in one of the in
camera meetings of the Governors’ conference, and it
was published, to embarrass the Governor!
When the Pope visited the United States, TIME

magazine published a report about the efforts of a
family in New York to catch a glimpse of the pontiff.
The family stood at a street corner, and saw the Pope
for a fraction of a second, but the happiness of the
family was indescribable. A TIME reporter caught
the mood of the family in a one page report.
I liked the report so much that I thought I could do a

similar story about an election campaign for a by-
election to Lok Sabha for the Kurnool seat, vacated
by Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy, in Andhra Pradesh.
In May, 1994, I happened to be in Kurnool district
covering the campaign of K.Suryaprakasa Reddy, son
of the Chief Minister, K.Vijayabhaskara Reddy.
Suryaprakasa Reddy was contesting for Lok Sabha,
in the seat vacated by his father. According to the
Chief Minister’s original programme, he should have
129
attended the funeral of Kasu Brahmananda Reddy in
the morning at Hyderabad, and come by helicopter
to Kurnool in the afternoon for the campaign. But
there was the “Seshan effect” those days, and the
Chief Election Commissioner was strict about
implementing Government Orders on the model code
of conduct. Vijayabhaskara Reddy was advised it
would be risky to travel by helicopter for a party
campaign, and so, he travelled by car from
Hyderabad, which was a distance of just 200 kms.
I was at Penchikalapadu village, hoping to meet

Suryaprakasa Reddy and travel with him to two or
three villages, but I saw the confusion among the
villagers and the party activists, as first, they said it
was Suryaprakasa Reddy that was coming, and later
on it was the Chief Minister himself coming. I was
able to see the way the party activists distribute
garlands to villagers to garland the Chief Minister,
the arrangements they make for a woman to give
haarathi to the visiting dignitary, the way they
arrange a crowd, and so on. This happens to all
130
political parties. I had H.Satish, our Photographer

with me, and I asked for a picture of the Chief
Minister accepting garlands from the crowd. The
whole event happened within the space of a minute,
and I described it in a matter-of-fact style without
using any adjectives to describe it. A man reading
the report would probably smile, seeing how things
are organised in the villages.
But the Chief Minister was quite angry with the

report. He knew only S.Rangarajan, the Managing
Director of THE HINDU, who also happened to be a
steward of the Hyderabad Race Club.
Vijayabhaskara Reddy met Rangarajan in the
presence of G.S.Reddy, another steward, who was a
personal friend of the Chief Minister.
Vijayabhaskara Reddy was informed that
Rangarajan was in the Madras Race Club attending
a race, and Reddy caught him there and complained
to him about my report. The Chief Minister
complained about a dozen times against my reports
to Rangarajan. His complaint was that I was
131
“partisan” in my coverage against him and in favour
of N.T.Rama Rao.
Vijayabhaskara Reddy told Rangarajan that his son

would win the Kurnool by-election by a margin of
over two lakh votes, and that the by election was not
much of a contest because it was his pocket borough,
but that I was making it look as if there was a keen
contest. Vijayabhaskara Reddy said that this was a
“farce” that I was enacting in order to help NTR.
Vijayabhaskara Reddy wanted that I should be
relieved of the Editorial responsibilities, and
preferably shifted to another town. The report “A
Village view of Campaigning” was part of the
strategy, he said.
Rangarajan called me up from the Madras race club,

and told me that the Chief Minister was very “much
upset” at the report, and “we have to do something
about it”. Rangarajan suggested “Why cant you
write another report saying that Vijayabhaskara
Reddy’s son will win hands down in Kurnool?” . I
told Rangarajan politely that I will deal with the
132
Chief Minister, and reported the matter to N.Ravi,

Editor, and Malini Parthasarathy, Executive Editor.
Both Ravi and Malini Parthasarathy stood by me
and asked me to ignore the Chief Minister’s threats.
The fact was that when Rangarajan met the Chief

Minister a few months earlier, the Chief Minister
asked him whether the HINDU required land in the
prime Jubilee Hills area for its printing press, but
since we already had a premises in which the paper
was being printed then, Rangarajan said he had
desire to build a guest house and the Chief Minister
offered a one acre site in Jubilee Hills. Rangarajan
had superstitious beliefs, and he stayed in one
particular room in the Krishna Oberoi Hotel when he
came for racing. He fancied for a good bungalow in
Jubilee Hills which he could use while he was in
Hyderabad.
When I came to know about this proposal from our

Managing Director, I conveyed to both Ravi and
Malini Parthasarathy, that one could get the best
acre of land, in 1994, at Jubilee Hills for Rs One
133
Crore, and it is preferable to purchase land instead of
getting it gratis from the State Government. Both of
them said they were not interested in the guest house
or the land, and so there was no follow up of the offer
of one acre of land. It was around this time that the
elections came and the report was published.
134
Reprint Edition 2
An Overview of Political Movements in
Andhra Pradesh
PREFACE
In the political arena of Andhra Pradesh, N.T.R, as

Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao was known, created
history, by entering politics in his 60th year, coming
to power in nine months through his Telugu Desam
Party, by being Chief Minister of the State for nearly
seven and half years, by becoming Chairman of
National Front which came to power at the Centre in
the 1989 general elections, and above all, by leaving
his imprint on the idiom of politics in his home State.
His legacy has been enduring, as shown by the fact
that he, and his son-in-law, Nara Chandrababu
Naidu, have been in power for 16 years out of 21
years since the founding of Telugu Desam.
This book attempts to present a brief account of the

politics and ideas of NTR and Chandrababu. It is
more of a narrative, written with the perspective of a
journalist, rather than an academician. I worked as
Chief of Bureau of THE HINDU at Hyderabad for
30 years since 1971, and I had a ringside view of the
events described here. NTR emerged on the political
scene virtually as a novice, after 30 years in the
135
cinema field, but he came at the right time, after
Chief Minister T.Anjiah was humiliated by the then
AICC General Secretary Rajiv Gandhi at Hyderabad
airport in 1982, with the right slogan - of Telugu
self-respect. In 1982, Bhavanam Venkatram Reddy
was the third Congress Chief Minister in four years,
and another was to come five months later, and the
papers were full of reports of Congressmen from
Andhra Pradesh quarreling in Delhi. NTR said that
“Telugu self-respect was being butchered on the
streets of Delhi. We will be nobody’s branch office.
Congress (I)!, Quit Andhra Pradesh!”
NTR had to contend with an antagonistic Congress

rulers in Delhi, such as Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi
and P.V.Narasimha Rao, and an endless barrage of
criticism from Central Ministers visiting Andhra
Pradesh, and a defeat in the 1989 elections that saw
him as Leader of Opposition for five years. His
triumphant return to power in 1994 December
elections was soon overtaken by a family coup
against him which saw him out of power by
136
September, 1995. NTR died in anguish five months

later, a leader, beaten not by the Congress (I) but by
his own sons, daughters and sons-in-law, thoroughly
frustrated by desertions from his camp of MLAs who
touched his feet when they were given party tickets.
To understand the significance of NTR’s emergence

in proper perspective, there is an overview of Andhra
Pradesh’s social and political movements, such as
Alluri Seetharama Raju’s rebellian of 1924 in Rampa
Chodavaram area of East Godavari district, the
Telengana Armed Struggle of 1944-52, where for the
first time the theory of capturing power through the
barrel of the gun was tested, the Srikakulam
Naxalite movement of 1967-71 and the most militant
Naxalite group in the Country, Peoples War Group of
CPI (ML). There is a brief account of Congress
politics as well.
The books ends with a chapter on Chandra Babu’s

emergence as a new leader, the way he established his
legitimacy in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, his
experiments with administrative reforms and
137
electronic governance, the structural changes he
initiated in the power, irrigation and in the financial
administration of the State, virtually as a pioneer in
turning a backward State into a Information
Technology hub, and making Hyderabad a
happening City. My idea in writing the book is to tell
the story as it unfolded, because I felt that this story
needs to be told, as a new generation has already
emerged since NTR stormed the political citadel of
the Congress in Andhra Pradesh.
138
An Overview of Political
Movements in Andhra
Andhra Pradesh ranks first - only when the States are
listed in the alphabetical order! The self-deprecatory
jokes in vogue describe the Telugu people’s attitudes -
if there are two Telugus in any town outside AP, they
form three associations. A businessman exported
crabs to United States, and the US trader sent a fax,
saying the plastic boxes had no lids. “Dont worry.
They are Telugu crabs, and if one tries to go up, ten
others will pull it down”,said the reply . But for all
these jokes , the Telugu speaking people were
receptive to new ideas and ideologies . Mahatma
Gandhi’s freedom struggle inspired many youth in
the Andhra districts, while the Brahmo Samaj
movement, the ideals of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
and Vivekananda, the social reform movements
initiated by Raja Rammohan Roy, M.N.Roy’s
philosophy of radical humanism, atheism as
practiced by Gora, all had their echo in the Andhra
countryside.
Andhra produced stalwarts in the freedom struggle

who carried the message of Sathyagraha and non-
violence to every nook and corner of the State . In
139
1921, Duggirala Gopalakrishniah performed the
extraordinary feat of persuading the entire
population of about 17,000 in Chirala to leave the
town and settle in the outskirts, calling the new
township Perala, as a form of protest against the
decision to convert the Chirala Panchayat to a
Municipality. The protest was against the decision to
increase taxes on houses when the town became a
municipality.
In 1937, Kommareddi Sathyanarayana Murthy led a

save farmers delegation, walking 1,512 miles from
Ichapuram on the Andhra-Orissa border to Madras,
to present a memorandum to the Speaker of the
Madras Assembly, Bulusu Sambamurthy. They took
130 days to do so, covering 520 villages en route and
collecting about 25,000 signatures on the
memorandum. The movement was spurred by a
Government decision to increase the revenue and
water cess on lands from five rupees per acre to six
rupees four annas per acre. In the memorandum,
Sathyanarayana Murthy said that 40 per cent of the
140
agricultural land in coastal Andhra was under the

control of Zamindars, Mokasadars and Inamdars,
that farmers were under distress because of the
burden of debt, and lack of remunerative prices for
the paddy and coconut produced. If the farmer
approached a money lender for loan, the latter
demanded that he execute a bond for Rs 150 for every
Rs 100 loan the farmer took. Sathyanarayana
Murthy explained that the coconut oil had no
market because of its liberal imports from Ceylon
and Java. The total debt burden of farmers was
estimated at Rs 300 crores, and the farmers
demanded that Government should write off the
debt. Parakala Pattabhirama Rao, an Assistant
Editor in Visalandhra, compared the farmers march
to Mahatma’s salt sathyagraha and wrote that the
farmers march turned into a movement for the
abolition of the Zamindari system.
In 1936, C.Rajagopalachari became Premier of

Madras presidency, and when the farmers
memorandum came before him, he had a committee
141
with Tantuguru Prakasam, Revenue Minister, as
Chairman, to go into the conditions of farmers.
Prakasam’s report became the basis for the Revenue
Settlement bill of 1939 adopted by the Assembly.
Prakasam said that there were in all 1,659
Zamindaris in Andhra, and that the Zamindars
collected Rs 213 lakhs as cess from the farmers, while
they remitted only Rs 44 lakhs to the British
Government. According to the permanent settlement
agreement, the collection was on a very high side,
because the Zamindars ought to have collected only
Rs 63 lakhs from farmers, to remit Rs 44 lakhs to the
Government.
The farmers continued their struggle for zamindari

abolition in the zamindaris of Munagala,
Venkatagiri, Challapalli, Kalipatnam and Mandasa.
The Zamindaris were finally abolished in 1948, after
Independence.
Andhra also saw two extraordinary rebellions from

the tribesmen, one led by Alluri Seetharama Raju in
the Rampa Chodavaram hill tracts of East Godavari
142
and Visakhapatnam districts and another by

Komaram Bhim, a Gond tribesman in Adilabad
forests in Telengana, both on the banks of the
Godavari river. Alluri Seetharama Raju’s rebellion
went on from 1922 to 1924. The rebellion started as
a form of protest against oppressive officials of the
agency tract, but later developed into a movement to
liberate the agency areas from the British rule.
Sitarama Raju started the movement quite
dramatically, with the attack on Police stations at
Chintapalli, Krishnadevipeta and Raja Vommangi
on three successive days from 22 August 1922, with a
band of 500 koya tribesmen, in which they captured
26 carbines and 2,400 rounds of ammunition.
As Atluri Murali of University of Hyderabad says in

his monograph: “this was the period of intensive no-
tax campaigns. It was in this period that Gandhiji’s
promise of Swarajya in one year captured the
imagination of the tribal masses. This period also
saw the peasent radicalism of Pedanandipadu in
Guntur district, militant civil disobedience movement
143
in Palnad and the mass exodus from Chirala” Alluri
Seetharama Raju liked the Gandhian call for total
prohibition, and started a campaign for prohibition
in the agency tracts. “His message spread like wild
fire. A new consciousness dawned on the innocent
people. People gave up drink in large numbers.
Seetharama Raju also encouraged wearing of Khadi
and he supplied Khadi uniforms to his followers”,
says Atluri Murali.
Seetharama Raju was 25 years old when he led the

rebellion. He was born in Mogallu in West Godavari
district, and studied upto the 9th class in Narsapur.
He was interested in astrology, herbal medicine and
horse riding, and he became a Sanyasin at the age of
18, wore a turban, a long shirt and knickers, all in
red khadi. The tribals regarded him as a holy man.
Seetharama Raju’s first band of followers included

the two brothers, Gam Gantayya Dora and Gam
Mallayya Dora, Aggiraju and Yendu Padal. The
Gam brothers were landholders but a petty official
called Bastian, the deputy tehsildar of Gudem,
144
deprived them of their lands and reduced them to

beggary. Gantayya Dora says in his deposition that
“I begged Bastian in so many ways not to ruin me. I
sat at his feet entreating him not to ruin me, but he
kicked me with his shoes thrice”. J.R.Huggins,
Agency Commissioner, in a report sent to
Government in 1922 said he examined some of the
captured rebels, and they were unanimous in saying
that the Deputy Tehsildar Bastian had under paid
and maltreated those working on the roads.
Seetharama Raju slowly converted the struggle

against the cruelty of Bastian and other officials of
the British empire to a struggle for Independence
from the British, hoping that Gandhiji’s promise of
Swarajya in one year would be achieved. The British
imposed a punitive tax of Rs 5,761 on the people of
Agency division for harbouring Seetharama Raju
and his followers. A Cash reward of Rs 1,500 was
declared for Seetharama Raju and Rs 1,000 each for
Gam brothers. The punitive tax was based on the
assessment that the monthly cost of a force of 100
145
men of Malabar Special Police was Rs 5,062 and for
East Coast Special Force, it was Rs 4,312. The
punitive tax was doubled in August, 1923 because the
area was visited a second time by Seetharama Raju.
The rebellion ended with the capture and killing of

Seetharama Raju on May 7, 1924. Vennalakanti
Raghaviah of Nellore published an eye witness
account stating that there was an altercation between
Seetharama Raju and Major Goodal at Mampa
village, that Raju demanded a prisoner of war
treatment, but that he was shot dead by a Jamedar of
East Coast Special Police on the orders of Major
Goodal. Mahatma Gandhi and the Andhra
Congress disapproved the armed rebellion, but
Gandhiji said in 1929, during his Andhra tour, when
a portrait of Seetharama Raju was presented to him,
that he would pay homage to a youth so brave, so
sacrificing, so noble in character as young
Seetharama Raju. “Would that the youth of the
Country cultivated Seetharama Raju’s daring, and
dedicated them for the attainment of Swaraj through
146
non-violent means”, Gandhji wrote in Young India.

After his death, Alluri Seetharama Raju became a
folk hero and a legend, around whom several folk
tales sprung up and a film was made.
Komaram Bhim’s rebellion resulted in the Nizam

inviting a German born Anthropologist, von Furer
Haimendorf, to come to Adilabad and study the
condition of Gonds. The Anthropologist made a
study and suggested several measures to help the
tribespeople, one of which is still followed today, of
holding a “durbar” during a tribal festival, when
tribesman could present their problems to the District
Collector and seek redressel
Telengana Armed Struggle 1944-51
The State saw several major movements, such as the

Telengana Armed struggle launched by the
Communist Party between 1944-51 and the
Srikakulam Naxalite movement of 1967-71, two
agitations demanding bifurcation of the State called
the separate Telengana and Andhra agitations of
147
1969 and 1971, and is today the home of the most
militant Naxalite group, the Peoples War Group of
the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist),
which wants to capture political power through
armed insurrection.
The Telangana Armed struggle was launched in

Nalgonda, Warangal and Khammam districts of
the old Nizam State, against landlordism and
against the Razakar movement. It was led by
Puchalapalli Sundarayya, Chandra Rajeswara Rao,
Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, Chandra Pulla
Reddy, among others. The Party cadres took to arms
to defend the lands seized from landlords and
distributed among the poor by the Communist Party.
P.Sundariah writes in his “Telengana Peoples
Struggle and Its Lessons” that about 4,000 Party
cadres were killed during the movement, more than
10,000 party cadres were detained in camps for three
to four years, and that the Party set up gram swaraj
in 3,000 villages and administered them.
Nizam’s Hyderabad was marked by abject poverty in
148
the villages, while power vested with the Nawabs,

Jagirdars and Deshmukhs. Even as late as 1949,
jagirs accounted for 35 per cent of the land, 34 per
cent of the villages and 30 per cent of the population,
as Barry Pavier writes in his “Telengana Movement –
1944-51” (Vikas, 1981). In December 1945, there was
an incident in Palakurthi village in Nalgonda district
when people resisted the attempt of the local
Deshmukh, Visnur Ramachandra Reddy, to
expropriate the crop harvested in a field belonging to
a widow.
As long as the Communist Party fought the landlords

and the Razakars, the people supported the Armed
struggle. But on September 13, ‘1948, the Indian
Army intervened and subdued the Nizam’s forces,
and about 6,000 Razakars surrendered and taken
prisoner as Nizam’s Hyderabad state was integrated
with Indian union. The character of the State
changed with Jawaharlal Nehru representing the
Indian Army, and the people were not willing to go
along with the Communist Party and throw out the
Nehru regime also, to usher in a people’s democratic
149
revolution under the Communist Party. The Party
suffered a series of setbacks from then on.
A delegation of Communist Party, consisting of

Chandra Rajeswara Rao, Makineni Basavapunniah,
Ajoy Kumar Ghosh and Sripat Amrit Dange went to
Moscow and held discussions with Stalin and leaders
of the Communist Party of Soviet Union.
The Telengana Armed struggle left an imprint on the

politics of the Andhra Pradesh state, it gave rise to a
strong civil liberties movement, triggered land
reforms, and made Khammam and Nalgonda a
strong base for the Communist Parties. It was to
counter this movement that Acharya Vinobha Bhave
launched his “Bhoodan” movement for redistribution
of land from Pochampalli village, famous for its
handloom sarees, in Nalgonda district in 1952,
accepting voluntary donation of land from big
landlords which was later redistributed among the
poor. Vinobha Bhave’s movement however failed
because of lack of linkages and a lack of follow up
action.
150
China’s Chairman is our Chairman -

Srikakulam movement 1967-71
The Communist Party split in 1964 in the wake of the

Chinese aggression, and a Communist Party of India
(Marxist) came into being, and the CPI (M) was split
again in Andhra in 1967 under the leadership of
Tarimela Nagi Reddy, Chandra Pulla Reddy,
Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao among others, at the
Party plenum in Palacole in West Godavari district.
They formed a CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Party and
wanted to launch militant land struggles over
ground, not below ground, and build a mass
movement throughout the Country for this purpose.
It also believed in forcible redistribution of land, by
taking over the surplus land from the landlords and
distributing it among the poor.
Immediately after the party was launched, the

leaders including the top brass consisting of Nagi
Reddy, Ch.Pulla Reddy and D.Venkateswara Rao
went to Madras to build the Party in secret, stayed in
a house at Anna Nagar where a new World Trade
151
exposition was being launched – and were all
arrested at one go by the Police. These leaders were
detained and were prosecuted under the
Secunderabad Conspiracy case for about 10 years .
This later split into various splinter groups by the
1980s, groups such as the Centre for Communist
Revolutionaries of India, the Praja Prathighatana
group, the Jana Sakthi group (named after their
publications) etc.
At the time of the formation of CPI (NL), the

Srikakulam district unit of the CPI (ML) was headed
by Vempatapu Sathyanarayana as General Secretary,
with Adibhatla Kailasam, Nagabushanam Patnaik,
Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Vasanthada
Ramalingachari and Chowdhary Tejeswara Rao,
among others in the District Committee. With
leaders of the newly formed CPI (ML) in jail, the
Srikakulam unit could easily be enticed by Charu
Mazumdar, who came to ask them to take to armed
revolution to overthrow the oppressive regime under
the guidance of Mao Tsetung Thought. With the
152
slogan “China’s Chairman is our Chairman” and the

main teaching that “power flows from the barrel of
the gun” the Srikakulam unit launched an armed
insurrection in a gruesome way. In the earliest
incidents, the group attacked a trader in Palasa,
killed him, collected the blood in a bucket and wrote
slogans in praise of Chairman Mao all over the
walls.
The movement got a boost with an editorial called

“Spring Thunder Over Srikakulam” published in the
People’s Daily of China which signified an open
endorsment of the CPI ML Mao Tse Tung thought
faction of the ML groups. The cultural revolution
was on in China, in which both the Country and the
Party were in a flux, but Charu Mazumdar’s thesis
prevailed with the Srikakulam group. While the
Naxalite movement weakened in Naxalbari itself,
where Charu Mazumdar initially launched, it took
sprouts in Srikakulam. A number of CPI ML activists
were in a state of confusion, and there was even one
group in Andhra owing allegience to Lin Piao., a
153
military leader who was subsequently discredited in
China.
Vempatapu Sathyanarayana, called “Baridi

Mastaru” (school teacher of Baridi village), was
around 40 years old when he suddenly caught the
nation’s attention as leader of the militant Naxalite
group. He was known to a number of Revenue and
Forest officials of the district, as he had organised a
Girijan Cooperative Society in Gumma Lakshmi
Puram, and had staged dharnas outside the Revenue
offices demanding fair price for the forest produce the
tribals had collected. He had a natural limp, which
made him a slow walker, had deserted his first wife,
to marry two tribal women, one belonging to Savara
and the other to the Jatapu communities in the
district.
The Srikakulam group killed about 40 landlords in

two years, and its underground cadre strength was
estimated at 200 while 500 tribals worked as militants
who worked overground and organised the courier
systems and the hideouts..Jalagam Vengal Rao
154
became Home Minister in Kasu Brahmananda

Reddy’s cabinet in 1969 and he took the naxalite
movement as a challenge to be dealt with at the
Police level effectively. There was one encounter in
September, 1969 in which 12 naxalite leaders were
killed, causing a serious set back to the Naxalites..
While the movement was in progress, a number of

members of the District Committee were caught by
Police and lodged in Visakhapatnam Central Jail,
and these included Nagabushanam Patnaik. Six of
these leaders made a dramatic escape from Jail, but
were arrested the following day as they were walking
along a railway track. Nagabushanam Patnaik’s
dairies revealed that he had serious differences with
Charu Mazumdar and Vempatapu Sathyanarayana
on tactics. Patnaik opposed eulogising “China’s
Chairman” and argued that Charu Mazumdar’s
policies failed to politicise the masses. He also
complained that exaggerated reports appeared in the
Liberation magazine, edited by Sushital Roy
Chowdhary, declaring Srikakulam district as a
155
“liberated area” which caused embarassment to the
party. Patnaik also wrote that Vempatapu
Sathyanarayana’s second marriage caused
resentment among the tribal communities.
The Srikakulam movement collapsed when

Vempatapu Sathyanarayana and Adibhotla
Kailasam were killed by Police in an encounter at
Bori Hills on July 12, 1970. Some of the naxalite
leaders later acknowledged that it was a mistake to
have issued the slogan that “China’s Chairman is our
Chairman” because the Savara and Jatapu tribes
people were unable to relate themselves to Mao Tse
Tung .
The Srikakulam movement triggered a new wave of

Governmental attention to tribal areas. It led to the
promulgation of Regulation 1 of 1971 which
contained a presumption clause, inserted at the
instance of S.R.Sankaran, Secretary, Social Welfare
department, that all lands in the Agency area are
presumed to belong to tribal people, unless there is
documentary evidence to the contrary. The
156
Regulation 1 of 1971 prohibited alienation of land by

a tribal to anyone except a tribal. Despite this
regulation, a large extent of land in tribal villages
passed on to the plains people who entered the area
as money lenders and businessmen.
A social activist group called Shakthi, headed by Dr

Sivaramakrishniah, did innovative research by
acquiring land records pertaining to 1920s from the
Revenue department, and then confronting the
Government with demands to reopen the land
ownership issue in several agency villages of West
Godavari district. They depended on the
presumption clause in Regulation 1 of 1971 and
succeeded to some extent, but there were pressures on
the Revenue officials not to disturb the non-tribal
landholders in the agency areas, and also the CPI
(M) and Peoples War activists entered the area in an
effort to displace Shakthi. Shakthi’s efforts to win
the tribal people’s case through legal means thus
encountered serious obstacles and they were forced to
slow down and later withdrew from the area.
157
Power from the Barrel of a Gun
As if in continuation of the Srikakulam Naxalite

movement, a Communist Party of India (Marxist-
Leninist) Peoples War, was established on 22 April
1980 by Kondapalli Seetaramiah, at Warangal. He
was a Hindi teacher working in the Railway School
at Hanamkonda and was already 57 years old. He
worked as a courier during the Communist Party’s
armed struggle in the old Nizam State during 1944-
52 but he was censured by the party and sent to work
in Krishna district, after his wife complained to the
party that he deserted her and was living with
another woman.
Just before he started the Peoples War, KS went to

China and spent a month there, learning the
techniques of guerilla warfare. He later said that he
asked the Chinese for money to fund a revolutionary
movement, but was given only Rs 25,000 to set up a
printing press! He was a good organiser, because he
built up a big infrastructure with dens, courier
systems, arms and money dumps, in the north
158
Telengana districts to start with. He enlisted people

like K.G.Sathyamurthy and Mukku Subba Reddy
into the Central Organising Committee. By about
1985, KS had nine State Committees in Tamilnadu,
Karnataka and Maharashtra beside the Andhra
Provincial Committee, the North Telengana Zonal
Committee and Dandakaranya Provincial
Committee.
KS planned it very big, concentrating on forest areas

on both sides of the Godavari river, called the
Dandakaranya. The Peoples War supported all
movements in the Country against the State, such as
the Naga rebels seeking cessation, the United
Liberation Front of Assam, the Khalistan Liberation
Force as well as the pro-Pakistan outfits operating in
Jammu & Kashmir.
KS once explained the PW philosophy in this way:
“The Indian ruling classes, the big bourgeoise, big

landlord classes, represented by all the political
parties, seek to protect the existing semi-colonial,
159
semi-feudal society, which is the root cause of all
basic problems of the people, such as hunger, poverty,
unemployment, high prices and corruption. The
economic interests of the ruling classes are
inseperably bound with the preservation of this
exploitative system. If hunger and poverty have to
go, unemployment has to end, if the Country should
prosper, then revolutionary agrarian reforms have to
be enforced on the basis of land to the tiller under the
hegemony of the proletariat. That means that all the
lands should be confiscated without paying
compensation and distributed free to agricultural
labour and landless poor. The huge capital and
properties of industrialists should be confiscated
without compensation. The people should boycott
the elections, being held in this exploitative society,
because it will end up only in handing over power to
the ruling classes and their henchmen”.
The PW philosophy was to capture political power

through armed insurrection, following the Mao
dictum that “power flows from the barrel of a gun”.
160
By 1986, PW had about 1,000 armed men and

women distributed in various dalams (squads). An
internal power struggle ensued, and KS expelled
K.G.Sathyamurthy and Mukku Subba Reddy and
brought in, in their place, Muppala Lakshmana Rao
alias Ganapathi among others.
Mukku Subba Reddy later surrendered to the Police,

and was given a prime piece of land near Irrum
Manzil in Hyderabad on which he built a five
storeyed shopping complex, made a neat pile of
money, and vanished from public gaze.
K.G.Sathyamurthy later joined a Bahujan
Republican Party, and came under Kanshi Ram’s
influence to join the Bahujan Samaj Party, but he was
snubbed by Kansi Ram at a public meeting in
Prakasam district. Two chairs were placed on the
dias for Kansi Ram and Sathyamurthy to sit, but
Kansi Ram had the second chair removed, forcing
Sathyamurthy to stand among the crowd.
Sathyamurthy subsequently left Bahujan Samaj Party
and went underground.
161
In 1991, KS found the going tough in the PW, as he
was slowly isolated in the COC as well as in the
Andhra Provincial Committee, with the COC
planning to make Ganapathy the General Secretary,
and elevating KS to the ornamental post of a
Chairman. At the plenum held that year, KS offered
to resign as General Secretary and Ganapathy
offered to resign from the COC, but the plenum
rejected both offers. KS complained that there was a
campaign launched against him, alleging that he was
too old and too sick to direct the movement. Later
that year, KS was expelled from the PW, on grounds
of senility. In March 1993, KS surrendered to the
Police. He was prosecuted in a Court, but was
released on bail, and he died peacefully in his village
near Gudivada. He was truly alone in the end,
because he made an attempt to reconcile with his first
wife, who was living in an Old Age Home in
Hyderabad, but she declined to join him in his last
days.
The PW has become the most militant Naxalite
162
group in the Country, by various squad actions

targetting leaders belonging to all major political
parties, besides killing poor people such as barbers
and washermen, branding them as “police
informers”, resorting to extortions, meting out
instant justice in “praja Courts”, organising famine
raids and so on. Between 1980 and 1996, a total of
1,140 Naxalites died in Police encounters, while the
Naxalites killed 1,805 civillians branding them as
“police informers” and 242 Policemen.
In its most dramatic action, the PW made an

unsuccessful bid to assassinate the Chief Minister,
Chandrababu Naidu, on October 1, 2003.
Chandrababu participated in a series of official
functions at Tirupati, and was going uphill to present
“pattu vastrams” to the deity, Lord Venkateswara, as
every year the Chief Ministers do during the
Brahmotsavams. A kilometre from Alipiri, the
starting point of the ghat road uphill, three PW
operatives triggered the 17 explosives they had
planted on the ghat road. Of them, 9 exploded, right
163
under the Chief Minister’s bullet proof car. The car
was thrown up and landed on its side, but by a
miracle, Chandrababu was dazed but unharmed,
while the Minister, Bojjala Gopalakrishna Reddy, and
two MLAs, Chadavalavada Krishnamurthy of
Tirupati and Rajasekhara Reddy of Puttur, sitting in
the back seat, were seriously injured. The PW
activists worked for a contractor as daily wage
labour six months earlier, and as the contractor was
building a parapat wall, the activists laid the
claymore mines under the ground of the ghat road,
connected them through copper wires, which they
concealed beyond the parapet wall in the bushes.
As the Chief Minister later explained, he fell on the

driver, and had a pass out, and he regained his
consciousness only as he was being wheeled into the
Ruia Government Hospital at Tirupati.
Chandrababu described his escape as due to divine
providence. After two weeks of rest in Hyderabad,
the Chief Minister went to Tirupati again, to offer
prayers to Lord Venkateswara. His wife,
164
Bhuvaneswari, gave a traditional “niluvu dopidi”

offering to the deity, and put into the hundi all the
gold and jewellery she was wearing at that time.
Chandrababu had a hairline fracture on his left
collar bone, and had to put his hand on a sling for a
month. There were small splinters in his rib cage and
intestines, and doctors said these could not be
removed. The Minister, Gopalakrishna Reddy, and
MLA, Krishnamurthy, were back in active politics a
month later, while Rajasekhara Reddy was still in
Hospital till December, 2003, recovering from the
head injury he suffered.
After the Alipiri incident, Chandrababu said

Government will not hold talks with PW. The PW
took an aggressive stand, and said it was “banning”
the Telugu Desam, that it will not allow Telugu
Desam leaders to campaign for the next elections,
and that it will target the Chief Minister once again,
and “this time he may not escape”.
The PW killed the Home Minister, Alimineti

Madhava Reddy, in a landmine blast on the
165
Ghatkesar road near Hyderabad, as he was
returning from a function in Ranga Reddy district, a
senior IPS officer, K.S.Vyas, as he was jogging in the
Lal Bahadur stadium in Hyderabad, besides senior
IPS officers, G.Pardesi Naidu and Umesh Chandra.
In 1997 alone, 148 extremists were killed while PW
units killed 46 policemen in exchanges and landmine
explosions. Police estimate that the PW was
collecting Rs 50 crores per year through “levy”
system in Andhra Pradesh alone.
The Peoples War committed its most ghastly crime

on October 9, 1990, when about a dozen activists
entered a compartment of Kakatiya Fast Passenger
at Ghatkesar near Hyderabad, bolted all the doors of
the compartment except one for their escape, poured
petrol across the compartment and set it on fire.
Forty seven passengers died. The compartment went
up on flames within seconds, and it burnt from 6.35
pm till 9 pm, and rescuers found bodies piled up near
the only door that could be opened where there was
stampede. The PW distributed pamphlets saying
166
they were protesting against the Supreme Court

staying the Mandal report on reservations for
backward classes. About a year later, Kondapalli
Seetaramiah spoke about the incident in an interview
he gave to a Telugu newspaper, saying that such
mistakes do occur in a revolutionary movement now
and then, but that does not deflect from the
importance of the movement. The PW did not
express regret, nor punish anyone for this act.
The PW appears to be on the decline, considering the

fact that about 565 extremists surrendered to the
Police in 1999 alone. The Police was able to strike at
the movement when it killed three top leaders and
members of the Central Organising Committee, in
an encounter at Koyyuru forest in Karimnagar
district. Those killed were Nalla Adi Reddy alias
Shyam, who was earlier Secretary of Andhra PC but
was elevated to the COC, Yerramreddy Santosh
Reddy alias Mahesh, Secretary of Andhra PC and
Seelam Naresh alias Murali, Secretary of North
Telengana Zonal Committee. In a rare signed
167
statement, Ganapathy said that these three leaders
were actually arrested from their shelter in
Banashankari near Sarakki gate bus stop in
Bangalore on December 1, 1999, while they were in a
meeting, because of the betrayal by Govinda Reddy,
who was running the shelter. Ganapathy said that at
the time of the arrests, Govinda Reddy had a dump
of atleast 5 kgs of gold and a few lakhs of rupees.
Ganapathy said that these PW leaders were bumped
off in a fake encounter in Koyyeru after they were
interrogated for full 24 hours.
The first suggestion for a dialogue to end the violence

came from the Andhra Pradesh High Court. In a
judgment in July 1996, Justice M.N.Rao and Justice
S.R.Nayak said that a peace commission be set up
with a representative character, inspiring confidence
in all sections of society, including the naxalites and
police, to bring about a cessation of police
encounters and violence by naxalites. In the
following year, a Committee of Concerned Citizens
(CCC) came up, with the pro-tribal civil servant
168
S.R.Sankaran as Convenor, which began a process of

writing to the Government and the PW to help
reduce the atmosphere of tension and violence. The
CCC said in 1997: “Agrarian movements are not a
new phenomenon in Andhra Pradesh. Land based
struggles of the poor, especially tribals, have taken
place several times in the region’s history. There is
presently a situation prevailing in north Telengana
districts, in which the right to normal and peaceful
living of the common people is severely curtailed by a
continuing spiral of violence and all round suffering.
While on the one hand, there is little respect for law
and life on the part of the State, and its agencies,
ruthless violence regardless of people’s will,
aspirations and sufferings seem to have overtaken the
revolutionary parties as well”
The CCC, 10 senior newspaper editors and a

group of teachers of Osmania University, issued an
appeal to both the Government and the PW in April
2000 to cease hostilities for a specified period, to
allow the people to live in peaceful atmosphere in
169
north Telengana. The PW’s response was one of
anguish that these three bodies placed on the same
footing, “the criminal and offensive Government, and
those who are fighting for the people and in self-
defence”. K.Ramakrishna, Secretary of Andhra PC
(who was to be killed in an encounter in 2003) listed
eight demands the Government should first accept
before a ceasefire could begin, such as stopping raids
on villages, ending combing operations in villages
and forests, instituting an enquiry by a Supreme
Court Judge on the deaths of Nalla Adi Reddy and
others.
Ramakrishna said that PW considered that it is the

“birth right of people to resist by legal or illegal
means, peacefully or by arms, the violence and
attrocities on the people, and cruel exploitation of
people by oppressive landlords and big capitalists.
We consider the right to fight as our historical
responsibility”
In 2002 however, there was a slow movement towards

talks, and the PW sent Gaddar, a ballad singer, and
170
Varavara Rao, a writer, as their representatives to

discuss the modalities for talks. The State
Government constituted a committee of three
Ministers including K.Vijayarama Rao, Minister for
Commercial Taxes, who is a retired IPS officer and a
former Director of Central Bureau of Investigation.
The Ministers preferred to talk to the PW itself,
instead of the emissaries, and said Government was
willing to discuss any agenda.
In a note given to the committee of Ministers having

talks with Gaddar and Varavara Rao on June 18,
2002, Ramakrishna said that rather than creating a
conducive atmosphere for talks, the Police continued
to arrest PW activists, foisting false cases and
resorting to torture. “We believe there is no change in
the attitude of your Police officials. They are
behaving like politicians and throwing spanners in
the talks process. They have been resorting to
malicious campaign against the democratic
movement. The main objective is to create peaceful
atmosphere, but the Government is scuttling the
171
process by demanding that our cadre should join the
mainstream and shun arms. We make it clear that
these issues do not form part of the agenda of talks”
Government said it cannot abdicate its responsibility

of maintaining law and order, and so cannot declare,
as a matter of policy, that it will not attack naxalites
in the face of provocation. The talks, held in two
stages in 2002, ended in failure.
In 2003, the PW’s COC consisted of Muppala

Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathy as General
Secretary, and, as Members - Cherukuri Raj Kumar
alias Madhav, Mallojula Koteswara Rao alias
Prahlad, Lambala Kesava Rao alias Ganganna,
Katakam Sudhakar alias Anand, Mallojula
Venugopal alias Vivek, Malla Raj Reddy alias
Sattenna, Lanka Papi Reddy alias Ranganna, Sande
Rajakumar alias Prasad, Jinugu Narasimha Reddy
alias Jampanna, Akkiraju Haragopal alias
Ramakrishna, who was Secretary, Andhra PC.
The CCC consists of eminent personalities such as
172
Potturi Venkateswara Rao, an Editor, Professors

G.Haragopal, D.Narasimha Reddy and
B.Chandrasekhara Rao of University of Hyderabad,
Prof K.Jayasankar, a former Vice Chancellor, among
others.
The CCC in 1999 told the PW: “We feel concerned to

find a shift in the direction of your movement, and
the thrust seems to be more on military objectives
rather than on mobilisation of people for social
transformation. This militarisation approach has its
own limitations, and will stiffle democratic
expression of people’s aspirations. Revolutionary
change, in our view, is a qualitative alteration of the
existing social relations and creating new human
beings who are superior in material and moral terms.
It is the moral responsibility of any emancipatory
movement to preserve all that is humane in the
existing society”.
Does a small minority of people represented by the

Peoples War have the right to alter the social
173
structure and take over by force a society and impose
its own rule and its Government on it? Can a small
group of dedicated people dictate to society saying
that democracy is a fallacy and that they will by
force impose on the society their own form of
Government?
The Marxist view is that “rights are constraints on

human freedom” and that “freedoms” and “rights”
had meaning to the propertied classes as they protect
and legitimise their priveleges, “but such a structure
results in the unfreedom of the proletariat. The only
freedom it has is the participation in the productive
process without having any say in the nature of
production and much less in the distribution of fruits
of labour”
In a discussion at the Univerisity of Hyderabad in

1997, Prof G.Haragopal, who runs a human rights
programme, said that the crisis in socialist world
added a new dimension to the discourse, and that the
view that socialist societies collapsed solely due to
their failure to observe political and civil rights
174
requires to be examined. He wrote: “China did not

collapse, partly because of its impressive
performance on the economic front and participative
culture, in the form of communes, that it inherited.
However the tragedy seems to be that China is not
only dichotomising the rights, but blatantly pleading
against the civil and political rights in all the
international fora. The standpoint of China and its
practices pose challenges to the notion of human
rights”.
A Civil Rights activist, Dr K.Balagopal, says that the

Marxist notion of a revolutionary rupture, as the
sum and substance of positive activity, looks very
doubtful today. In a discussion on the difference
between individual-centred and collectivity-centred
rights, he says: “Where the Moist agrarian revolution
is seen as the collective right of the landless poor,
then that is to be supplemented by the right of an
individual landless labourer to reject the revolution
and colloborate with the Congress Party, a right that
is not always respected by the Moists in Andhra
Pradesh or Bihar”.
175
In his view, the individual-centred rights and
collectivity-centred rights are not mutually exclusive
but complementary. He makes a distinction between
the right to live freely within society, and the freedom
to overthrow the society. “Stark as this dichotomy
appears, in practical terms, there can be no right to
overthrow a social order, if one is talking of that
right as an entitlement that can be conceivably
conceded” Dr Balagopal wants everyone to look at
democracy positively as an achievement of human
civilisation, which is to be carried forward while
critically overcoming its limitations.
Dr Balagopal says that he acknowledges the principle

that Government must be made of those who have
the mandate of the people to govern, though it does
not solve all problems of mandate. He rejects the
notion that real change towards a free society can
only come through a forcible rupture of the existing
society. “Every attempt to build a classless society by
force of authority has failed, and will fail again and
again. The fight against oppression frequently takes
176
violent forms but the restructuring of society on just

lines is not something done by force”, he adds.
The world in 2003 is vastly different from the world

of Karl Marx. The Information Technology
revolution has completely changed the concept of
means of production and distribution, and today it is
agreed that “knowledge creates wealth”. The trend is
to have knowledge societies, and knowledge hubs.
Bill Gates has become the world’s richest person with
a worth of Rs 4 lakh crores, earned through software
creating Windows 95 etc, but he does not own any
factory. The Peoples War has got into a trap,
thinking that its own understanding of Marxism-
Leninism is the only legitimate way to interpret it for
the 21st century. The techniques the PW use might
have been used before in Vietnam in the 1950s and in
Cuba in 1960s, but India is a nation of continental
proportions, and therefore an unlikely theatre in
which a guerilla movement can capture power.
177
Congress Politics
Congress politics in Andhra Pradesh were always

marked by groupism. All Congress Chief Ministers
were basically group leaders, who maintained
political groups of supporters, who regularly met and
advised the Chief Minister, or, if the leader was out
of power, met regularly to plan for the Chief
Minister’s ouster. The Ministers under the Chief
Minister, or the leaders with the dissident contender,
had their own groups in the districts, and these
district leaders also played a big role in the politics of
the State. These leaders frowned on those that
shifted their loyalties and tried to punish them.
The freedom struggle encompassed all sections of

society in Andhra districts, but the movement did not
throw up a leader who could rub shoulders with
Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, or Subash Chandra
Bose, someone comparable to Rajaji from the South.
The best known figure from the past is Tanguturi
Prakasam Pantulu, called Andhra Kesari, the Lion of
Andhra, for baring his chest and daring a Policeman
to shoot, while leading a demonstration against
178
Simon Commission near the Madras Harbour in the

1930s. Though he quit the Congress to join the
Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party of J.B.Kripalani, when
he lost the election as President of Andhra Congress
Committee to Neelam Sanjiva Reddy in 1952,
Prakasam was made the first Chief Minister of the
newly formed state of Andhra, with Kurnool as
Capital, in October, 1953. But Prakasam’s
Government could not survive even for one year, and
his Government was defeated by a single vote, due to
Congress factionalism, on an innocuous issue such as
prohibition. Bhogaraju Pattabhi Seetharamiah was
a scholar, who founded the Andhra Bank at
Machilipatnam in the 1920s, and an official
biographer for the Congress. He had to contest at
the instance of the Mahatma, against Subash
Chandra Bose and became the President of All India
Congress Committee. There were big leaders like
N.G.Ranga, whose actual name was Gogineni
Ranganayakulu, of whom it was said that he will not
“get the first post of a Chief Minister and will not
accept the second”. Prof Ranga was a Member of
179
Parliament for 50 years, but his active political career
ended by the 1970s. There was a man of sterling
character, Tenneti Viswanatham, who was Leader of
Opposition in the Madras Assembly while Rajaji was
Chief Minister. Viswanatham was a colleague of
Prakasam, and he drifted to Janata by 1977, but
faded out later. There was thus a long gap in the
Congress heirarchy, and senior Congress leaders
found they were looked down upon even by Personal
Assistants to Prime Ministers and Congress
Presidents. Another disadvantage was that the
leaders from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema
districts had no knowledge of Hindi, and this
inhibited their access to senior leaders from the
North.
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy became the first Chief

Minister of Andhra Pradesh, when the integrated
State came into being on November 1, 1956, by
combining the 9 districts of Telengana from the
erstwhile Nizam’s dominion, with 9 districts of
coastal Andhra and 4 districts of Rayalaseema. He
180
was the natural choice, as he was President of

Andhra Congress Committee, a strong faction leader
who consolidated his position to retain a unique
place in politics. When he was four years into office,
the then AICC President, K.Kamaraj, came up with a
plan to draft important leaders for party work, and
Sanjiva Reddy was sent to Delhi as AICC President,
thus helping a Scheduled Caste leader, Damodaram
Sanjiviah, to become the first SC Chief Minister in
the Country. Sanjiviah was swamped by dissidence.
Anam Chenchu Subba Reddy, who was Minister
under Sanjiviah, gave him immense trouble, and after
1962 general elections, Sanjiva Reddy returned to the
State as Chief Minister while Sanjiviah went to Delhi
as AICC President. Sanjiva Reddy was unlucky in his
second stint as Chief Minister. In 1963, Government
took over all private bus routes, and the first one to be
nationalised was the route operated by Machani
Somappa, a staunch follower of Sanjiviah, in
Kurnool. Somappa went to Court, alleging mala
fide in the Government decision, asserting that
Sanjiva Reddy chose to take over his bus routes first
181
to punish him for supporting Sanjivayya. Sanjiva
Reddi’s affadavit did not specifically deny this
allegation, and the High Court held that since the
petitioner’s charge was not denied, there could be
substance in the charge, and hence the GO was set
aside. Sanjiva Reddy resigned. He later commented
that a former Chief Minister without power was “like
a temple without a deity”. Sanjiva Reddy went on to
become the Congress candidate for President in the
1969 elections. Indira Gandhi proposed his name -
and then helped the Independent candidate, V.V.Giri,
to win!. Sanjiva Reddy cooled his heels for the next
seven years, when he became the only Janata
candidate to win from Andhra Pradesh at Nandyal,
becoming first the Speaker of Lok Sabha, and then
the President. He then played a dubious role in
helping to topple Morarji Desai’s first Janata
Government at the Centre, then making Charan
Singh rather than Jagjivan Ram, to head a
Government, and paving the way for mid term
elections to Lok Sabha in 1980 and Indira Gandhi’s
return to power.
182
When Sanjiva Reddy resigned as Chief Minister in

1964, Kasu Brahmananda Reddy was installed in his
place. He was a shrewd politician, and he ruled the
State for seven and half years from 1964. He
consolidated his position, isolated his adversaries,
and had a fairly smooth term of office till 1969 when
the separate Telengana agitation shook the State. In
the old Nizam’s Sate, the Nizam gave preference in
Government jobs to Mulkis, that is those domiciled in
the dominion for a minimum period of 15 years.
Andhra Pradesh came into being in 1956, and the
Non Gazetted Officers (NGOs) who came to
Hyderabad, first from Madras, when Andhra State
was formed in 1953 with Kurnool as capital, and
from Kurnool, would become Mulkis by 1971. When
the NGOs from old Hyderabad and old Madras
presidency were being integrated in common lists for
promotions, the employees from Telengana felt that
they would have got their promotions if the
employees from Andhra had not come to Hyderabad.
Dr Marri Channa Reddy was a Minister in
183
Brahmananda Reddy’s cabinet, but Brahmananda
Reddy persuaded him to go to the Centre as a Union
Minister for Steel. In the 1967 elections to the
Assembly, an Arya Samaj leader, Vandemataram
Ramachandra Rao, contested against Dr Channa
Reddy, and later unseated him through an election
petition, by proving that Dr Reddy appealed to
Muslims in a dargha to vote for him, which was an
election offence. Dr Reddy had to resign from the
Union Cabinet in 1969 and returned to Hyderabad,
nursing a grievance against Brahmananda Reddy
who was considered the spirit behind the election
petition. Dr Channa Reddy set up a Telengana
Praja Samithi and mobilised the NGOs who had
grievances about their promotions, and students
behind the TPS. He went all out for a separate State,
whipping up regional sentiments. The movement
reached its peak in 1969 when the people from
Andhra were brusquely asked by groups of protesters
to leave Hyderabad, and an exodus took place in an
atmosphere of fear. At the height of the agitation,
there were frequent police firings on demonstrators in
184
Telengana districts and Hyderabad was placed under

curew. The Telengana leaders said that more than
300 people were killed in police firings, and
Brahmananda Reddy was unable to control the
movement.
The Telengana agitation vulgarised politics in

Andhra Pradesh. People from Andhra region had to
come to Hyderabad because it was the State’s capital,
the seat of the High Court, the Secretariat, the offices
of all Heads of Departments, Central Government
offices having jurisdiction over the State, which
naturally gave a spin off for the location of housing
colonies and industries. The people from Andhra
region felt cheated at the turn the agitation took,
targetting them. Dr Channa Reddy would go to
Delhi frequently, call on Indira Gandhi, and
announce that the days of Brahmananda Reddy were
numbered, as he had become the “biggest irritant for
the people of Telengana” while Brahmananda Reddy
would say that Dr Channa Reddy was “pumping air
into a punctured tyre”. Brahmananda Reddy never
185
considered the option of resigning, because he
enjoyed the majority support of Congress MLAs.
But one day at the height of the agitation, he
suddenly resigned, resulting in a mass celebration of
firing crackers in Hyderabad, but this was a one day
affair, because the Congress Legislature Party
rejected his offer to resign and Brahmananda Reddy
continued in power!
A big turmoil was going on at the national level, and

Indira Gandhi nationalised banks and abolished
privy purses, and went for a snap election to Lok
Sabha in 1971. The Telengana Praja Samithi won 10
out of 14 seats in Lok Sabha from the region and
showed it truly represented the Telengana sentiment.
But still Brahmananda Reddy would not go. The end
came dramatically, when in reply to a debate in the
Assembly in September, 1971, the then Finance
Minister, K.Vijayabhaskara Reddy, asserted that “no
force on earth” can unseat Brahmananda Reddy as
long as he enjoyed the support of legislators. The
next day, Brahmananda Reddy was called to Delhi
186
and asked to resign. This was however preceded by

high drama. 1968 and 1969 were marked by severe
rice shortage all over the Country, and there were
controls over the movement of rice stocks from one
district to another and from one State to another.
Even so, Brahmananda Reddy collected five rupees
per quintal of rice for party fund from millers who
were given permits to export rice from coastal delta
districts to Kerala, Karnataka and Tamilnadu. In
September of 1971, Income Tax officials swooped
down on rice millers in Andhra, and rice traders in
the three southern States, to check their records, to
see how much rice actually came in from Andhra,
and to calculate the actual amount that
Brahmananda Reddy collected. The atmosphere
was so tense that Hyderabad was agog with rumours
that even the Chief Minister’s official residence was
searched. Anyway, Brahmananda Reddy resigned.
Since the “major irritant was gone”, Dr Channa
Reddy dissolved the Telengana Praja Samithi and
merged with the Congress, thus ending the separatist
agitation. It was clear from the succeeding events
187
that Dr Channa Reddy’s number one objective in
conducting the seperate Telengana agitation in 1969
was to remove Brahmananda Reddy from power,
rather than have a seperate state for Telengana, and
having achieved this objective in September, 1971, he
called off the agitation. A small group calling itself,
Sampurna Telengana Praja Samithi, tried to continue
the agitation for Seperate Telengana, but it could not
make even a fraction of the impact that Dr Channa
Reddy made before, and it could win only two seats
in the Assembly in the 1972 elections. One seat was
that of T.Purushotham Rao of Warangal, who
subsequently went to Congress and became a
Minister in Vijayabhaskara Reddy’s Cabinet in 1993
while the other was that of J.Eswari Bai, of the
Republican Party, who subsequently tried to have an
alliance with N.T.Rama Rao in 1983, was rebuffed,
and remained a Republican party leader.
P.V.Narasimha Rao became Chief Minister on

Vijayadasami day in September 1971 with a fund of
goodwill. But he was so unsure of himself that he
188
spent 40 days in Delhi out of his first 50 days as Chief

Minister, seeking constant advice and guidance
from the High Command. He became a “Non
Resident Chief Minister” and slowly lost his public
goodwill. When the Supreme Court upheld the Mulki
Rules, P.V.Narasimha Rao welcomed the judgment,
saying it said the “final word” on the subject. The
simmering discontent among the people from Andhra
region in Hyderabad blew up with this statement,
and a movement for seperate Andhra took shape,
again spearheaded by the NGOs and students from
that region. They said they cannot get a seat for
their children in a Government College in Hyderabad,
or get a job under AP Government because they were
not mulkis. They said that people from Andhra
region were treated as second class citizens.
P.V.Narasimha Rao allowed things to drift, without
taking charge of the situation. He made his first big
mistake when he allowed his Cabinet to divide on this
issue. One day in 1972, Ministers from the Andhra
region assembled in the chambers of Sagi
Suryanarayana Raju, the elderly Minister for Forests,
189
while the Telengana Ministers assembled under the
chairmanship of P.V.Narasimha Rao, and in the
meeting chaired by the Chief Minister, the Minister
for Municipal Administration, M.Manik Rao, made
a flippant remark that if the Andhra Ministers want
to get back to their region, he would provide
“municipal lorries” to tranship their luggage free of
cost! A mass agitation began in the Andhra region,
and they looked to B.V.Subba Reddy, then Deputy
Chief Minister, and P. Basi Reddy, senior Minister,
to lead the agitation. Early in December, 1972, a
senior Minister from Krishna district, Kakani
Venkataratnam, died suddenly due to a heart attack
in Vijayawada, but P.V.Narasimha Rao as Chief
Minister was unable to attend the funeral because
protesters threatened to block the runway at
Gannavaram airport near Vijayawada if any
aircraft carrying the Chief Minister were to land
there. All MLAs from Andhra region met in Tirupati
in December 1972 and called for a statewide bandh.
P.V.Narasimha Rao became isolated. Then before
the Bangladesh war, a senior Central Intelligence
190
Officer came to convey a secret message to the Chief

Minister about preventive arrests being made that
night, but he found Lakshmikantamma, MP, with the
Chief Minister, and the Chief Minister brusquely
asked the officer to convey the message in her
presence. When the IPS officer conveyed this
information to Delhi, Indira Gandhi was angry. P.V
did not take the hint, when a Congress High Power
Committee that was constituted in January 1973
recommended imposition of President’s Rule in
Andhra Pradesh. He expanded his cabinet on
January 8, while the State was brought under
President’s Rule on January 13. The separate
agitation ran out of steam towards the end of 1973,
when Jalagam Vengal Rao became Chief Minister.
He tried to heal the wounds of two separatist
agitations by having the first World Telugu
Conference in Hyderabad in 1975.
The two separatist agitations affected the

development of Andhra Pradesh, because of the
political uncertainity it created. There were differing
191
views on the agitation, one that Brahmananda Reddy
was not sensitive to Telengana sentiments, and he did
not have a Deputy Chief Minister from Telengana,
nor have a Telengana Regional Committee of MLAs
from Telengana to look into development effort, nor
follow conventions about allocation of budget funds
equitably between the two regions. He did all these in
1969 but without much result. Similarly, the view is
that the Andhra agitation was spearheaded by
landlords, upset at the promulgation of the Ceiling
on agricultural land act by P.V.Narasimha Rao. But
this act was promulgated all over the Country
around the same time with small variations as
between the States. P.V.Narasimha Rao went into a
political hybernation from 1973 until he was made
AICC General Secretary and later a Minister in
Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet. In 1984 elections, he was
defeated at Hanamkonda as a Union Minister, but he
entered Rajiv Gandhi’s Cabinet as he was elected
from Ramtek in Maharashtra, the second
constituency from where he entered the Lok Sabha.
After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991,
192
P.V.Narasimha Rao went on to become Prime

Minister and served the nation for five years. The
two agitations threw up a new band of leaders, such
as Mallikarjun from Telengana and M.Venkiah
Naidu from Andhra.
By 1980s, the Congress was the only credible political

force in Andhra Pradesh. At the end of the
Telengana armed struggle in 1952, the Communist
Party of India emerged as a big political force,
because the CPI’s Ravi Narayana Reddy won with a
margin bigger than Nehru’s, from the Nalgonda
seat. In the 1955 elections held for 196 seats in the
Andhra region, the CPI polled 31.13 per cent vote but
won only 15 seats, because the Congress entered into
seat adjustments with the Krishikar Lok Party of
N.G.Ranga and Gowthu Latchanna, the Praja
Socialist Party and Praja Party, winning a formidable
majority, the Congress winning 119 seats, the KLP 22
and PSP 13 seats. This Assembly had a seven year
term. Elections were held for 101 constituencies in
Telengana region in 1957, and here the CPI forged an
193
alliance and contested under the People’s Democratic
Front banner, polling 25 per cent vote and winning 22
seats. After the split of 1964, the two Communist
Parties share in votes came down to about two per
cent each in later elections.
The fact that dissident Congressmen were the main

Opposition in Andhra region was proved by the 1967
elections to Assembly, when 68 of them won as
Independents polling 26.5 per cent of the votes. The
Congress won 165 seats with a 45.3 per cent vote.
The Swatantra party put up a good performance
with 29 seats and a vote share of 9.8 per cent. But the
mystery clears when the vote is seen to be a dissident
vote. In the 1967 elections held simulteneously for
Lok Sabha and State Assembly, Damodaram
Sanjiviah as All India Congress President, contested
for Lok Sabha from Kurnool, but in the seven
Assembly segments, he did not accomodate one
single Reddy follower of Kotla Vijayabhaskara
Reddy, then the powerful Chairman of Zilla Parishad
and a staunch follower of Brahmananda Reddy.
194
Vijayabhaskara Reddy set up his own candidates

under the Swatantra symbol, which was the “star”,
and these candidates were called “chukka (star)
Congress” nominees!. Sanjivayya and his nominees
were all defeated by Vijayabhaskara Reddy’s men.
Brahmananda Reddy later rewarded Vijayabhaskara
Reddy with a Cabinet berth, made him first the
Minister for Cooperation and later the Minister for
Finance.
The 1972 elections presented a unique picture, again

showing the bankruptcy of the Opposition parties.
After Brahmananda Reddy’s exit, the groups in the
Congress realigned, and 18 MLAs won without
contest, including four from Kurnool district, because
of the understanding between Congress factions.
Brahmananda Reddy was effectively neutralised,
because he could not harm the party though all his
prominent followers, including Vijayabhaskara
Reddy, Seelam Sidda Reddy, Ronda Narapa Reddy
and Kamatam Ram Reddy were denied party tickets.
Congress thus became a monolith organisation by
195
the 1980s, and to take such an organisation head on
was a mighty task. But NTR was a film star new to
politics, and he took the plunge with a certain
amount of self confidence and determination.
196
The beginning of Telugu Desam
For the people of Andhra Pradesh who were governed

by the Congress since Independence, the emergence
of N.T.Rama Rao on the political scene in 1982 was
a big event, but no one thought at that time that
NTR was going to take over power from the
Congress the following year. The youth were
enthused, and they flocked to his public meetings, but
it looked as if a powerful Opposition Party had
emerged on the political scene and nothing more.
NTR spoke the idiom that the people understood, his
face was well known to the crowds because he was
the hero in 295 Telugu films, most of which were
successful at the box office, and he came at the right
time to challenge the Congress’s supremacy in the
State’s politics. His whirlwind tour of the State
started drawing bigger and bigger crowds, and as
1982 was coming to a close, it was clear that NTR
was taking the state by storm.
In February, 1982, Rajiv Gandhi came to Hyderabad,

while he was General Secretary of All India Congress
Committee, and was received with big fanfare by the
197
Chief Minister, T.Anjiah, and a host of Congress
leaders. There was pellmell at the airport, and when
a group of leaders went up to the aircraft, to receive
the visitor with garlands, Rajiv Gandhi flew into a
rage, and asked: “Is this a tamasha? Why did you
allow all these people near the aircraft?”. So saying,
Rajiv Gandhi walked in a huff to the Indian Airlines
counter, threatening to buy a ticket for a return
flight to Delhi. A tearful Anjiah tried to explain that
that was the normal way of showing affection, but
Rajiv Gandhi was in no mood to listen. He then went
to a special aircraft to go to Tirupati for worship in
the temple, but did not allow Anjiah to accompany
him. Anjiah was left to sulk in his chambers at the
Secretariat. Rajiv Gandhi returned to Hyderabad
that evening, and he then pacified Anjiah. The
Telugu press published a series of pictures showing
the humiliation of the Chief Minister in sequence.
There was widespread public resentment at the way
Anjiah was treated by Rajiv Gandhi, who at that
time was the son of the Prime Minister and did not
hold any public office. The Assembly was
198
summoned for the Budget session, but under

instructions from Delhi, it was cut short to last a
week only for the Governor’s address. The
Opposition in the House fully sympathised with
Anjiah, and at the instance of P.Sundarayya, the
stalwart CPI (M) leader, the House unanimously
adopted a motion of thanks for the Governor without
any amendments or interruptions, by way of
expressing solidarity with the Chief Minister. After
the session was over, Anjiah resigned in anguish.
The manner in which Bhavanam Venkataram Reddy

was chosen, as successor to Anjiah, made the
process of chosing a leader a complete farce. Kona
Prabhakara Rao and N.Janardhana Reddy contested
for the post, and for the first time in such contests,
ballots were distributed among MLAs to test the rival
candidates’ strengths. But the MLAs were unwilling
to chose a leader by themselves, because Janardhana
Reddy’s followers thought Kona Prabhakara Rao’s
followers had advance notice of the contest and
mobilised their MLAs in strength while some of
199
Janardhana Reddy’s MLAs were out of town.
Ultimately, both the groups left the choice to Indira
Gandhi, as was the case in every leadership election
in the past. She was on a boat ride in Dacca on the
day she was supposed to have been consulted by the
two Congress (I) observers who came to assess the
strength of rival contenders in Hyderabad, and
finally, the name of Bhavanam Venkatrama Reddy
was announced as the Prime Minister’s choice. There
were daily reports from Delhi about the way
Congressmen from Hyderabad, camping in Delhi,
were fighting it out among themselves to impress the
“Congress High Command”. Bhavanam was a dark
horse, he and the deputy Chief Minister,
C.Jagannadha Rao, were both Members of
Legislative Council, and the first and last time that
an MLC was chosen to become Chief Minister.
At that time, NTR came up with a slogan to cash in

on the public disenchantment with Congress politics.
“Our Telugu self-respect is being daily butchered on
the streets of Delhi”, NTR said. “We will be
200
nobody’s branch office. They go to Delhi to seek

permission to transfer a clerk in Tehsildar’s office.
The Congress (I) of today has nothing to do with the
Congress of Mahatma Gandhi. It split into as many
letters as there are in the alphabet. Indira Congress!
Quit Andhra Pradesh”, NTR would say.
NTR was born in Nimmakuru village in Krishna

district on May 28, 1923. His father was Lakshmiah
Chowdhary, but NTR went in adoption to his uncle,
father’s brother, Ramiah Chowdhary, who had no
children. NTR went to school at Nimmakuru and
Vijayawada, and took a B.A. degree from Andhra
Christian College in Guntur in 1947. He was selected
in a Madras Public Service Commission examination
and appointed as a Sub-Registrar on a salary of
Rs 190 per month. After he entered service, he got
an offer to act in a film called Mana Desam (Our
Nation) directed by L.V.Prasad, and he chose films as
his career. He had married a cousin, Basava
Tarakam, in 1942 while still in College.
His second chance was as hero in B.A.Subba Rao’s
201
film, Palleturi pilla (a village girl). L.V.Prasad then
signed a contract with NTR for two years, and
produced films such as Pathala Bhairavi that were
box office hits. There was no looking back for NTR
from then on, and his films have become classics,
such as “Lava Kusa” and “Maya Bazaar”, a film
about Sasirekha’s marriage to Abhimanyu, which
ran for 75 weeks each. NTR devoted the next 30
years to films. Just before he entered politics, he went
to the matam of Sri Pothuluri Veera Brahmam, a seer
of the 19th Century in Cuddapah district, who
predicted the future in his “Kala gnanam”
(knowledge of time). One of Veerabrahmam’s
predictions was that “the figures you see on the stage
will one day rule the land”, a prediction about actors
in street plays becoming politicians and ruling the
State. Visitors to this matam are invited to try the
wooden sandals worn by the seer, and for NTR it was
a perfect fit, and the matadhipathi told NTR that he
was destined for a great future. NTR made a film on
Veera Brahmam, and this was released after a delay
of a year caused by the Censor, who objected to NTR
202
showing M.G.Ramachandran becoming Chief

Minister of Tamilnadu, and Ronald Reagan
becoming President of United States, by way of
fulfilling Veerabrahmam’s predictions about actors
on the stage. The Censor, as well as the Congress,
thought that the picture was subtle way of projecting
NTR as a future Chief Minister. NTR approached
the Madras High Court and had the visuals retained.
The film became a box office hit, though it was
released after he became Chief Minister. A reservoir
has come up at Brahmamgari matam in Cuddapah
district, as part of the Telugu ganga project.
NTR was an egoistic actor who dictated terms to his

producers and stars, but he shone in the roles of
Rama, Krishna and Duryodana, which endeared
him to the Telugu people wherever they were, and this
particular aspect of his film career stood him in good
stead when he entered politics.
NTR had quaint views of social issues. At a

function in Hyderabad in 1976, when the film
Thathamma kala (great grandmother’s dream) was
203
given an award, NTR asked, in the presence of
Jalagam Vengal Rao, Chief Minister, whether Sri
Krishna, Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath
Tagore would have been born if their parents had
practised family planning and limited their children
to two. His view was that land reforms were
unnecessary, because fragmentation of land holdings
would reduce yields.
It was left to Nadendla Bhaskara Rao, a Minister in

Dr M.Channa Reddy and T.Anjiah’s Cabinets, who
was unceremoniously stripped of his important
portfolios by both Chief Ministers, to recognise the
potential of NTR to found a regional party. Baskara
Rao talked to NTR and encouraged him to enter
politics. Bhaskara Rao’s assessment was that the
Congress was losing ground very fast in Andhra
Pradesh, but Congress faced no real challenge from
the established Opposition parties. The Opposition
parties lost credibility, because at the end of each
general elections, they migrated to the ruling Party
and settled there. Though NTR was new to politics,
204
his face was familiar to every man, woman and child

in the State, and NTR could effectively convey a
message. There was need for someone with a
charisma to pull a major upset in elections.
NTR travelled with the Chief Minister-designate,

Bhavanam Venkatram, on February 24, 1982, in the
official car, to the Raj Bhavan for the swearing in
ceremony of the Chief Minister and was impressed
with the pomp and show. NTR spent only about five
minutes in the Raj Bhavan lawns and was greeted by
the new Cabinet ministers. He started to interact
with people who were in a position to influence the
politics of the State. One of them was Cherukuri
Ramoji Rao, who was the Editor of Eenadu Telugu
daily, which had already made a big impact on the
media scene with its innovative get up, distribution
network and gathering of news. Ramoji Rao brought
professionalism to the production of a newspaper.
While the 70-year old Andhra Patrika, a respected
name in Telugu journalism of those days, was printed
on a letter press, with the deadline for a dak edition
205
at 2pm, that was sent by bus to Kurnool for
distribution the next morning, Ramoji Rao printed
his Eenadu at midnight and sent the bundles by car to
Kurnool, to reach the reader by 5 am. Telugu
newspapers did not build adequate circulations
before the advent of Eenadu, but Ramoji Rao created
a big newspaper reading public in Telugu. By 2003
Eenadu had a circulation of 10 lakhs and a
readership of one crore. NTR benefitted by his
association with Ramoji Rao from the very
beginning.
The other Telugu dailies, Andhra Jyothi, Andhra

Bhoomi and Andhra Prabha, were pro-Congress in
their coverage, and Eenadu broke new ground,
projecting the Opposition’s cause and projecting
NTR in a very big way, when everyone was thinking
that NTR was indulging in a gamble that had more
chances of failure than success.
It was in this atmosphere, NTR addressed his first

political press conference on March 21, 1982 at the
Ramakrishna Cine studios in Hyderabad. He merely
206
said that after 30 years in the film field, he had

decided to dedicate the rest of his life to uplift the
poor and downtrodden sections of society by fighting
injustice. He was asked about the political party he
was going to establish, its chances, its political
ideology, but NTR neatly refused to answer any
“hypothetical” question. About a week later, NTR
addressed a party workers meeting at the
Legislators’ Hostel in Basheerbagh, in which he
announced that his new party would be called
“Telugu Desam”, and that the party’s colour would
be yellow to symbolise auspiciousness,.
He made his first political announcement of selling

rice at two rupees a kilo to families below poverty
line, at his first public rally at the Nizam College
grounds on April 21 that year. He pledged to supply
mid day meal to school children. If he came to power,
his Government will ensure food, clothing and shelter
to the poor and needy. What is a Government worth
if it cannot provide the basic amenities to the poor
people?, he asked. He made a controversial reference
207
to Tanguturu Prakasam for having bartered away
Bellary “for selfish ends” at the time of the States
Reorganisation in 1956.
The Congress Party’s reaction to NTR was one of

ridicule. G.Venkataswamy, who was the president of
Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee, called NTR’s
party “kamma desam”, after NTR’s kamma caste,
asserting that NTR was a casteist come to protect his
caste interests. Chandrababu Naidu was a Minister
in Bhavanam’s cabinet, but his own assessment was
that NTR would not be able to defeat the Congress,
though he would emerge as a major Opposition force
in the State. Chandrababu Naidu was asked whether
he would join his father-in-law ‘s political party, and
he replied that he would not, and added that he will
contest against NTR if his Party asked him to do so.
But Congressmen were beginning to see the threat

NTR was posing to them. There were rumblings
within the Congress about Bhavanam Venkatram’s
capacity to effectively counter NTR. The idea of
selling rice at two rupees a kilo was a concept that
208
NTR borrowed from the Dravidian politics. He

knew of the promise C.N.Annadurai made before the
1967 elections in Tamilnadu, at which DMK came to
power, of selling rice at One Rupee per Madras
measure (which was equivalent to about 1.5 kgs).
The DMK did not keep the promise, but for the sake
of record, rice was sold at one rupee per measure for
one month in Coimbatore only.
Kona Prabhakara Rao, as Finance Minister in

Bhavanam’s cabinet, produced an eloborate paper, to
prove how NTR’s promise of two rupees a kilo rice
scheme was a hollow promise, made by a novice
without knowledge of Government’s budgetary
allocations, the extent of subsidy the Government
would be forced to provide, and how such diversion
of funds would seriously affect the State’s Irrigation
and Power programmes. Congress leaders projected
NTR as an upstart who neither understood politics
nor administration, and said that “governing a State
was different from acting as a Chief Minister in a
film”.
209
NTR however became synonymous with the Rs 2 per
kg rice scheme, and is remembered only for this single
programme. When NTR introduced the scheme on
Telugu New Year’s day in March, 1983, the subsidy
came to Rs 33 crores a year. Those days, the issue
price of the Food Corporation of India was Rs 200
per quintal for a coarse variety of rice, Rs 214 for a
fine variety, and the average came to Rs 208. The
handling charges came to Rs 25 per quintal. The
scheme was originally targetted at families below
poverty line, which was Rs 3,600 annual income.
The Government covered 60 lakh families, and the
offtake was 10 lakh tonnes. As the subsidy came to
Rs 33 per quintal, the overall Government subsidy
came to Rs 33 crores. Since the open market price of
rice was Rs 3.50 the scheme was welcomed as a boon
for the poor. S.Jaipal Reddy, the lone Janata MLA
when NTR was Chief Minister, called NTR a
‘complete ignoromous’ for the scheme because no
economist would approve a scheme that was
impractical.
210
In 1982, NTR ignored these criticisms, and was

methodically building his party and contacts. He
published a full page advertisement in Eenadu,
inviting all those wanting to join Telugu Desam to do
so by filling up a proforma printed there, and posting
it to the Party office. People in a village, who were
keen to join the Party, should gather at a village
centre on a particular day, and elect one among them
as President of the village unit, and another as
Secretary, and five others as Members of the
Executive Committee. The newly elected Village
President should communicate these names to the
Party office at the Ramakrishna studios in
Musheerabad. The presidents of about 50 village
units in a Panchayat samithi area, should meet in the
samithi headquarters on a notified date, at which a
representative from the State party headquarters
would be present, and elect one among themselves as
President of the Telugu Desam panchayat samithi
unit. The Presidents of the samithi TDP units have
to elect the president of the district unit of the Party
in the presence of an observer from the State party
211
headquarters. The Presidents of the District and
Panchayat Samithi units of the Party would then
constitute the general body of the Party.
NTR convened the first party mahanadu (general

body) at Tirupati on May 28, 1982, and thereafter,
began an intense familiarisation tour of the State.
What he did was quite new in Andhra Pradesh
politics. He travelled by a van, fitted with a public
address system, two powerful lights to focus on him
when he stood on the top to address a gathering at
night. He had a tractor trailor in tow housing a
generator, and from morning to night, he travelled
from village to village, addressing way side public
meetings from his van. This was the cheapest form
of a campaign, because there was no need to erect a
dias, arrange a public address system, or a lighting
system or mobilise crowds. His van contained all the
facilities to enable him to address a crowd of upto
5,000. Since NTR was coming from the world of
films to politics, people came out of curiosity to see
him, and he had the maximum exposure among
politicians to the Andhra Pradesh public.
212
He chose two Telugu songs as his signature tunes.

One was the song “maa telugu talliki malle poo
danda” (a garland of jasmine for our Telugu mother)
written by Sankarambadi Sundararachari, which is
the normal prayer song in school functions, and
another, “cheyetthi jaikottu Telugoda” (Oh Telugu
man, raise your hand to herald victory ) written by
the Communist Party leader, Vemulapalli Sri
Krishna. These were old songs, but the song maa
telugu talliki was set to music to an attractive tune
and sung with gusto, by the eminent playback singer
P.Suseela and became very popular among the
crowds. About 10 minutes before NTR would enter
a village, a jeep would go round the village playing
the tapes of the two songs and leave, when crowds
would gather on the roadside because they knew
NTR was on the way, and NTR would enter the
village to receive an enthusiastic reception. Nothing
like this happened in Andhra Pradesh political
campaigns before and people were taken in by the
sheer novelty of the whole exercise.
213
NTR had another jeep trailor in his entourage,
which travelled ahead, in which a cook travelled with
cooking vessels to prepare breakfast, lunch and
dinner, while there was a motor mechanic to check
the transmission and electrical systems in the van
with his kit of tools, and another to wash clothes.
The staff would camp separately on the waysides,
make breafast, and hand it over to the driver of the
van in which NTR travelled, and leave for the next
station to prepare lunch. NTR was therefore self-
contained, and he never went to any leader’s house
for lunch or dinner throughout his political career in
the next 13 years. He would drink sodas, not water,
frequently to quench his thirst. He would sit on top
of the van in the hot sun, wiping his face with towel
now and then, without regard for his glamour as a
film star.
NTR would sleep in his van at nights, parked near a

field or near a mango garden . He would bathe
under a roadside tree in the morning, an event widely
covered in the Eenadu. Congress leaders did not like
214
the campaign a bit, and called NTR a “drama rao”,

a man who indulged in gimmicks to hog publicity,
and dismissed him as of no consequence.
Elections to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly were due

in March, 1983, but these were advanced to January,
to prevent NTR from further consolidating his
position. Around September 1982, the Opposition
parties in the State proposed to NTR to have seat
adjustments with them to avoid multi-cornered
contests. The two Communist Parties, the Janata, the
Lok Dal, the Republican Party of India formed a
Progressive Democratic Front, and invited NTR for
talks. NTR and Bhaskara Rao went for the talks, but
they ended in a deadlock, as the PDF set their
demands high, offering 174 seats to NTR , with the
remaining 120 seats for sharing by the five parties in
the PDF. NTR made it clear to them that if at all he
came to power, he should be able to form a
Government on his own, and he did not fancy a
coalition. Since he expected to win only 60 per cent
of the seats he contested, he asked for 250 seats for
215
Telugu Desam, so that he will win atleast 148 seats,
with the remaining 44 seats available for the PDF to
share. The PDF rejected the offer.
George Fernandes was in Hyderabad on 28 October

1982 to form a Hind Mazdoor Panchayat, and he
criticised the PDF leaders for paying obeisance to
NTR “who was arrogant because of the manner in
which he treated senior Opposition leaders in the
State” In the 1978 Assembly elections, the Congress
(I) came to power winning 175 seats on a 38 per cent
vote, while Janata polled 29 per cent and won 60
seats and Congress (R), headed by Brahmananda
Reddy at the national level and Jalagam Vengel Rao,
Chief Minister, polled 17 per cent and won 30 seats.
But the Opposition leaders failed to see that NTR
was about to replace them all first, before he would
defeat the Congress.
K.Vijayabhaskara Reddy succeeded Bhavanam as

Chief Minister in September, 1982, and a fresh wave
of ministry making took place. Now, NTR was
being taken seriously enough, because private
216
opinion polls showed that people were looking

forward to the two rupees a kilo rice scheme and mid
day meals programmes. Vijayabhaskara Reddy
suddenly introduced a Congress version of the
subsidised rice programme on November 19, Indira
Gandhi’s birthday, of selling rice at Rs 1.90 per kilo.
There was a big fanfare as the Chief Minister went to
a Fair Price shop where he inaugurated the
programme amidst a glare of publicity. The earlier
Congress (I) criticisms about the rice programme, the
eloborate papers prepared by Kona Prabhakara Rao,
and the ridicule poured on the scheme were all
disowned in a day. Actually only about 50,000 tonnes
of rice was sold this way in Hyderabad and
Vijayawada towns to create an impact to neutralise
NTR’s campaign.
The elections were announced, and suddenly there

was an atmosphere of urgency about countering the
NTR wave. NTR stipulated a condition that any
Congress (I) MLA wanting to join Telugu Desam
should first resign his membership of the Assembly.
217
After Nadendla Bhaskara Rao, three other MLAs did
so to join Telugu Desam, C.Narayana, Gade Rattiah
and Adeyya. Then Nallapareddi Srinivasulu Reddy,
the MLA from Nellore district, came to Telugu
Desam with a big fanfare, walking with his
supporters from his MLA Quarters in Basheerbagh
to the Ramakrishna studios in Musheerabad, a
distance of about five kilometres, and was received
well by NTR. Srinivasulu Reddy described himself as
an Arjuna, and NTR being Krishna, “the two of us
will defeat the Congress (I) Kauravas in the next big
battle”.
NTR continued with his campaign throughout the

length and breadth of the State, covering a distance
of about 43,000 kms in his van, a very stupendous
effort. Only Eenadu gave wide coverage to this
campaign, the other Telugu papers hesitant to take
notice of the big road show, because of their
proprietors’ known tilt towards the Congress (I).
Ramoji Rao went all out to support NTR. NTR was
also helped by the editorial teams of Eenadu to select
218
candidates for the Telugu Desam ticket, because

reporters and contributors of Eenadu in the districts
knew the antecedents of those seeking Telugu Desam
ticket, and helped filter undesirable elements from the
lists. The Eenadu teams also would give talking
points to NTR about the specific problems in each
constituency so that he could mention them in
passing.
The public view was getting crystallised in favour of

Telugu Desam, and Indira Gandhi addressed a series
of campaign meetings to counter the impact. At an
election meeting that she addressed at Nandyal town
in Kurnool district, the Congress (I) candidate, Bojja
Venkata Reddy, asked the crowd dramatically
whether they wanted a “tried and trusted friend of
the weaker sections like Indira Gandhi, or a film
personality that was playing gimmicks to get
publicity”, and the crowd responded, saying that they
wanted NTR!. Indira Gandhi also asked the crowd
to vote for the hand symbol, but here and there across
the crowd, people lifted their bicycles to show their
219
preference, as the bicycle was the election symbol of
Telugu Desam.
Towards the dying moments of the campaign, there

was a clear indication of the shape of events to come.
At Tirupati, Indira Gandhi addressed her last public
meeting. While the Prime Minister was speaking,
word went round the crowd that NTR had entered
the town, and people started leaving Indira Gandhi’s
meeting to see NTR.
NTR won a two thirds majority in the AP Assembly.

The Telugu Desam won 202 seats, on a 44 per cent
popular vote, while the Congress got 60 seats with 33
per cent vote. The two Communist Parties drew a
blank in the entire coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema
regions. The CPI (M) got five seats while the CPI got
four in Telengana districts. The Janata, Lok Dal and
Republican Parties drew a blank. The result was a
complete surprise to the Congress which was
confident of having an edge in a neck-to-neck race.
220
Indira Gandhi had a 20 point programme during the

Emergency, and there were schemes such as the
Integrated Rural Development Programme aimed at
helping the poor among Scheduled Castes to rise
above the poverty line. These programmes however
failed to achieve results mainly because of lack of an
effective monitoring system, and lack of linkages.
The scheme had an unintended impact in the villages,
where the poor belonging to artisan classes, such as
carpenters, weavers, washermen, watched
Government jeeps going to Scheduled Caste slums to
distribute a buffalo, or a handcart or a pumpset
under the 20 point programme. The backward class
artisans thought that Indira Gandhi and the
Congress (I) were neglecting them, though they were
also poor, and this group became the main group to
have supported NTR in the 1983 elections.
221
January 1983 AP Assembly elections
Party Seats won Votes polled %
Telugu Desam 202 98,62,540 46.6
Congress (I) 60 71,30,292 33.6
Independents 17 20,90,631 9.8
CPI 4 5,83,048 2.75
CPI (M) 5 4,40,033 2.07
BJP 3 5,51,951 2.61
Janata 1 2,02,417 0.95
Lok Dal - 1,93,880 0.80
After the defeat, the out-going Chief Minister,

Vijayabhaskara Reddy said in a mood of defiance:
“The Congress (I) cannot be wiped out. You are
going go see what role the Party is going to play. It
has always been with the people and it will surely
make an impact”. Kona Prabhakara Rao, the senior
222
Congress (I) leader said he welcomed the idea of

Congress (I) sitting in the Opposition. “The Party
was overtaken by a sense of complacency. And since
it was in power all through, a lot of people joined the
Party for the sake of power. Today they would leave
the Party and only the dedicated cadres will remain.
The chaff will go, and a few years in the Opposition
will really help the Congress to build itself afresh”, he
added.
NTR behaved as if the expected had happened. On

the day the Telugu Desam Legislature Party met at
the Jubilee Hall in Hyderabad to elect NTR as the
leader, Srinivasulu Reddy made the first public
announcement of the Party’s intention to abolish the
Legislative Council. Telugu Desam had no
representation in the 90-member Council while the
Congress (I) had a two third majority, and the
Council could be used to stall legislation.
NTR took his oath of office before a packed Lal

Bahadur stadium on January 9, 1983, striking a new
path once again, because all earlier Chief Ministers
223
were sworn in only at the Raj Bhavan. He enjoyed
the honeymoon he was having with the people,
whose expectations were roused. He went to Delhi
for a discussion on a plan size, and enjoyed the
attention he got in the nation’s capital. On January
24, he issued an executive order removing all non-
official Chairmen and Directors in about 35 State
Government undertakings, all Congress appointees.
He said that telephones rendered free should be
frozen, and cars and furniture used by the Chairmen
and Directors, should be returned to the Guest
House department for further allotment.
NTR was new to both politics and administration,

but he was in a hurry to act, thinking that the people
would ask him for an explanation for what he had
done with such a massive mandate. He made a
major mistake while taking a series of decisions, at a
crucial cabinet meeting on February 8. There were 32
items on the agenda, and a 33rd item was added at
the last minute, of reducing the retirement age of
Government servants from 58 years to 55. The age of
224
retirement was enhanced from 55 to 58 years by Dr

Channa Reddy in October 1979, and NTR wanted to
reduce it in order to fulfil his promise to unemployed
youth to provide jobs.
The Ministers and officials were tired when the

Cabinet discussed the 32 subjects for about four
hours, and anyway there was no one in the cabinet to
advise NTR to observe restraint, instead of
antagonising all sections of people at the same time.
The issue of reducing the retirement age was taken
up, and NTR asked Chief Secretary, B.N.Raman,
whether Government had the power to reduce it.
Raman replied that if a Government had the power
to enhance it, it would follow it had an equal power
to reduce it as well. The Cabinet then approved the
proposal.
When NTR revealed the Cabinet decisions in the

chronological order, the press persons were also
getting tired because all decisions were important,
but the last one about retirement age electrified the
atmosphere, because the decision had far reaching
225
consequences which the Chief Minister obviously did
not envisage. A barrage of questions were posed to
him, such as how many employees would retire and
what would be the commitment to Government by
way of additional pension per year. NTR had no
answers. The Feb 8 Cabinet also decided to initiate
steps to abolish the Legislative Council, to introduce
a bill to cancel pensions being paid to former
Legislators, approved a bill to provide equal property
rights to daughters along with sons in their parents’
property, and extending ban on capitation fees to
professional colleges run by minorities. The Cabinet
also decided to close down all the 5 canteens in the
Secretariat, except during the lunch hour, under the
assumption the employees spent most of their time
there, and to remove attendance registers from the
departments at 10.40 am, giving only a 10 minutes
grace period for employees to report for duty.
The next day the Chief Minister addressed

Secretariat employees who were sulking that the
attendance registers were removed by 10.35 am itself,
226
forcing them to forego half a day’s casual leave for a

five minute late coming. No one cheered NTR as he
came to address them, but when he said he ought to
have retired 5 years ago as per his new retirement age
policy, about 25 per cent of the crowd cheered him,
but he won his audience over, when he declared he
will not allow anyone to harass them if they worked
sincerely six hours per day as per rules.
Then a serious problem about the retirement age

came to surface. By Rule 2 of the Fundamental Rules
governing service conditions of employees, the
Government was empowered to alter service
conditions but a proviso to this Rule said that the
Government “cannot alter the Rules to the
disadvantage of the employees already in service”.
The Rule position was not brought to the notice of
the Chief Minister when the Cabinet was discussing
the issue. Why was it not done? There was no
answer. But the political atmosphere was so tense in
the first months after NTR came to power, that the
Chief Secretary fearing some action against him,
227
went on leave, and he left Hyderabad in a hurry in a
car, and at Jadcherla, caught a bus to Bangalore as
if someone was in persuit! (Raman came back as
Chief Secretary only when Nadendla Bhaskara Rao
assumed charge as Chief Minsiter on August 16, 1984
and again went on leave a month later when NTR
returned to power)
The age of retirement was reduced through a

Government Order MS 36 dated February 8, 1983.
The Governor promulgated a Ordinance to keep the
proviso to Rule 2 of the Civil Services Conduct rules
in abeyance. A total of 19 associations of Non
Gazetted Officers went to Supreme Court challenging
the order. The Governor promulgated an Ordinance
on April 10 that year, stating that all amendments
made to the Fundamental Rules, and particularly the
amendments made by GO MS 36, and all
notifications issued in this regard, “shall be and shall
be deemed always to have been made validly and
shall have effect notwithstanding anything to the
contrary in the proviso to the said Rule 2, as if this
228
Ordinance were in force on 8 February 1983” . On

April 9, NTR announced government’s decision to
ban private practice by Government Doctors.
On February 28, a total of 30,000 Government

employees retired from service. In the Irrigation
department, 12 out of 13 Chief Engineers, 47 out of
72 Superintending Engineers, 125 out of 540
Executive Engineers retired, while 130 Civil Surgeons
out of 400 retired. At a Kurnool Municipal Council
meeting, a Town Planning Officer handed over
charge to a supervisor and left half way through a
budget meeting, as he retired from service. A
retirement at three weeks notice was a major problem
of adjustment and suffering for the thousands of
employees which NTR did not foresee.
The Supreme Court upheld Government’s Order

reducing the age of retirement, by the end of 1984,
but before that, in August 1984 when NTR ‘s
Government was dismissed and Nadendla Bhaskara
Rao usurped power with Congress (I) support, the
Government restored the age of retirement to 58
229
years. After his return to power in September, 1984,
NTR allowed the 58 years of retirement age to
continue at the suggestion of leaders of the CPI, CPI
(M), Janata Dal and BJP, who supported him in his
first political crisis in August, 1984. Government paid
in full the three years of salary and allowances of the
30,000 employees who were retired and sent home in
February 1983, and those that retired every month
after that date till their 58th year.
NTR’s first year in office was marked by a number of

far reaching changes in the administrative set up. He
abolished the posts of Karanams and Munsiffs in
Andhra region, and the Patel and Patwari setup in
Telengana districts, a move that became instantly
popular, the heriditary rights of temple priests and
trustees, the taluq set up, replacing the 330 taluqs
with 1,100 mandals, each mandal representing about
20 to 30 villages compared to 60 in earlier taluqs.
Then one morning, he had the Minister for Labour,
M.Ramachandra Rao, arrested on a corruption
charge when the man accepted a bribe of Rs 20,000
230
from a decoy posing as a representative of a factory.

Ramachandra Rao was dismissed from the Cabinet.
NTR created a big impact, but the big image he

acquired as a lone person to defeat the Congress (I)
was dented, by the Non Gazetted officers who took
out processions throughout the State, ridiculing
NTR. The NGOs took out rallies with a man posing
as NTR who made theatrical noises to attract
attention. The daily Eenadu contributed to this
atmosphere by reporting that NTR vowed to “skin
NGOs alive” at a closed door meeting at Kurnool, a
remark NTR repeatedly denied having made. NTR
was singularly unlucky in having ill equipped
bureaucrats, who either deliberately or out of
ignorance, gave him wrong advice, while he had none
to advise him at the political level.
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NTR’s First Political Crisis
In NTR’s first Cabinet, Nadendla Bhaskara Rao

was the Minister for Finance, and described himself
as the “co-pilot”. Bhaskara Rao used to be present
at every meeting chaired by NTR in the Secretariat.
In four months time, their relationship soured. NTR
was also told that Bhaskara Rao had a role in
withholding information about the rule position
about the age of retirement of Government
employees from the Cabinet, which would have
prevented or delayed the decision to reduce the age of
retirement.
From then on, Bhaskara Rao was rarely seen in the

Chief Minister’s chambers. Chandrababu Naidu,
NTR’s son-in-law, who contested on the Congress (I)
ticket and lost in the elections, started to attend to
Telugu Desam Party work at NTR’s house.
Parvataneni Upendra, an Officer in the Indian
Railways at Calcutta, resigned his post and came to
Telugu Desam, in July 1982, started to play a major
role in the Party as its General Secretary.
Bhaskara Rao saw that he was being sidelined, and
232
in one of his trips to Delhi as Finance Minister, in the

beginning of 1984, he had a meeting with Indira
Gandhi and Pranab Mukherji, then Union Finance
Minister. Bhaskara Rao said he had the support of
the 90 Telugu Desam MLAs, and if the 60-Member
Congress group in the Assembly supports him, he can
replace NTR as Chief Minister. Indira Gandhi was
non-commital, but Pranab Mukherji suggested that
Bhaskara Rao should consolidate his hold before
striking. The Prime Minister’s “backroom boys” as
her advisors were called those days, were however
enthusiastic about the prospect of an internal revolt
to get rid of NTR.
In July, 1984, NTR went to the United States for a

heart bypass surgery. He was away for a month.
Bhaskara Rao decided that the time had come to
implement his plan, and replace NTR before the
latter returned from US. He spread word among his
close associates that NTR was planning to drop him
from the Cabinet, and a letter signed by a sizeable
number of MLAs would prevent NTR from acting in
233
haste. About 90 MLAs signed the letter and this was
projected as the support he had from among Telugu
Desam MLAs for his coup. He had to work in
confidence, lest NTR or his supporters sense that
something was going on in Bhaskara Rao’s
chambers.
Bhaskara Rao’s strategy was to submit this list of 90

MLAs to the Governor, Ramlal, on August 14, have
the Leader of Congress (I) Legislature Party give a
letter pledging support to him, and get himself sworn
in as the Chief Minister, so that he would address the
Independence day parade instead of NTR. A major
political upheaval was expected, such as an Andhra
Pradesh bandh and Police firing in a dozen towns, but
these incidens could be controlled in a week or 10
days time, by imposing a curfew and detaining a
number of NTR supporters. Bhaskara Rao assessed
that without power, NTR would be confined to his
house to nurse the humiliation.
NTR was informed about the signatures while in US,

but he did not take it seriously because he was not
234
planning to drop Bhaskara Rao from the Cabinet.

But an Intelligence Officer explained to him that this
was the plan to dethrone him. NTR did not believe it,
and in the normal course, NTR returned to
Hyderabad on August 14. Bhaskara Rao was on
hand to receive him with a bouquet. When NTR
reached home at 2 pm, a letter was delivered to him
from Bhaskara Rao demanding action against the
Chief Secretary, Shravan Kumar, for inaugurating a
new wing of the Secretariat while “Number 2” in the
Government, Bhaskara Rao was available to perform
the function.
NTR’s advisors including Chandrababu Naidu and

Upendra, who knew of the signatures that Bhaskara
Rao had collected, sensed an impending crisis. They
sent word to all Telugu Desam MLAs to assemble at
NTR’s house in Abids at 3 pm as the Chief Minister
was going to address them. There was an emergency
Cabinet meeting at 5 pm in which the Chief Minister
announced his decision to drop Bhaskara Rao from
the Cabinet. But Bhaskara Rao resigned first.
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Time was of great essence for Bhaskara Rao’s plan
to succeed on August 14. Bhakara Rao was in a
hurry to be sworn in, but he had only 55 MLAs with
him, and he should first get hold of the 36 others on
whose support the success of his plan depended, and
he was confident that others would come when he
became Chief Minister. Some Congress leaders from
Andhra Pradesh conveyed to the PM’s Office that
Bhaskara Rao did not physically have the 91 TDP
MLAs with him, and that the number might be
between 60 and 70. The Congress leaders in Delhi
therefore waited for some positive proof about the
actual figure before dismissing NTR on August 14.
Bhaskara Rao lost his chance on August 14 itself,

when the Congress High Command dithered, and
waited for one more day to enable Bhaskara Rao to
physically assemble his 90 odd MLAs for a head
count by the Governor.
While Bhaskara Rao was waiting for a Delhi call,

NTR’s advisors acted very fast. The MLAs who
came to NTR’s house were shifted to the
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Ramakrishna Studios, owned by NTR in

Musheerabad, in special busses, saying that the venue
of the meeting had suddenly to be shifted.
Simulteneously, Police pickets were posted at the
MLAs’ New Hostel in Basheerbagh and old Hostel in
Hyderguda to prevent outsiders from entering.
Bhaskara Rao was unable to establish contact with
the Telugu Desam MLAs who were expected to
support him.
On August 15, Hyderabad was agog with rumours

that NTR was going to be dismissed, and Bezawada
Papi Reddy, Vice President of TDP, who unfurled the
national flag at the TDP office, warned of a big
agitation . NTR spoke at the Secunderabad Parade
grounds after taking a salute, and in the evening, he
came to the Raj Bhavan for the At Home hosted by
the Governor, Ram Lal. Pro- Congress (I) guests were
elated at the prospect of NTR going out of power,
and they were talking about how off colour NTR
looked that evening. The issue was whether NTR’s
dismissal would come about that night or the next
237
morning. On Aug 16 morning, Bhaskara Rao
paraded his 55 MLAs along with some functionaries
from Telugu Desam party office, some Personal
Assistants to Ministers and car drivers, and
convinced a willing Governor that he had 91 MLAs
with him.
Around that time, the MLAs belonging to CPI, CPI

(M), BJP, Janata joined the TDP MLAs at the
Ramakrishna studios as NTR was speaking to them
about Bhaskara Rao’s deception, when the
Governor’s letter, dismissing his Government, came.
The Governor said he was convinced that NTR had
lost the majority support in the Assembly and
therefore was obliged to dismiss his Government
forthwith. As the letter was read out, the non-Telugu
Desam leaders suggested that the MLAs should be
presented to the Press. Since reporters and
photographers of all major newspapers were already
there, NTR called out each MLA by name, and the
MLA stood up and was counted. There were in all
145 MLAs belonging to Telugu Desam and 19
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belonging to other Opposition parties, making it a

total of 164, which is a clear majority in a House of
294.
After some consultations, the MLAs decided to go in

a group to the Raj Bhavan and present themselves to
the Governor. NTR travelled in the Chief Minister’s
car with full police escort, while the Ministers and
MLAs travelled in busses. NTR’s car was allowed
into the Raj Bhavan, but the buses were stopped a
furlong away, near the Administrative Staff College
of India gate. The MLAs got down and ran towards
the Raj Bhavan where they were stopped by a strong
Police contingent, headed by the Police
Commissioner, K.Vijayarama Rao. After some
heated arguments, the MLAs were let in.
The Governor refused to see them, as he was

preparing to go to the Durbar Hall to have Nadendla
Bhaskara Rao sworn in as Chief Minister. The MLAs
then squatted on the steps, and prevented the
Governor from moving further. The Governor was
helpless, while Bhaskara Rao and his MLAs were
239
waiting in Durbar Hall, waiting to be sworn in, and
there were feverish consultations as to how to deal
with the situation. Then, the Governor ordered the
Police Commissioner to arrest all the MLAs including
NTR. This took some time, as the Ministers in
NTR’s cabinet got on to a Police truck, NTR used a
wooden stool to climb into the Police van. All these
MLAs were taken to the Police Control Room. Since
the MLAs insisted they should be arrested, the Police
prepared a First Information Report in which the
names of all the 164 MLAs were listed – another
proof that NTR still commanded a majority. There
was another point that NTR scored, because his
photograph sitting on a Police van appeared on Page
1 of all newspapers while Bhaskara Rao’s swearing
in appeared in inside pages.
Bhaskara Rao explained that he split the Telugu

Desam to save Andhra Pradesh from the clutches of a
novice in politics who allowed his sons-in-law and
other family members play a major role in
administration, who did not allow internal
240
democracy inside the Party and who humiliated the

party workers. He said NTR adopted a
confrontationist attitude towards Congress (I) at the
Centre, while the public mandate was to develop the
State with Centre’s cooperation, like MGR did in
Tamilnadu.
At a public meeting held in Exhibition Grounds with

NGOs and Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen supporters,
the two sections that fully backed him, Bhaskara Rao
made the charge that NTR was “an anti-national in
league with communal forces to disrupt the unity
and integrity of the Country” He said that NTR was
in touch with several foreign missions. The theme
that NTR represented anti-National forces was used
by the Congress (I) before the 1983 elections, but the
people took no notice, but Bhaskara Rao took up
that theme again.
Entire Andhra Pradesh became tense with a state

wide bandh taking place to protest the “murder of
democracy” and 17 people were killed in Police
firings in Anantapur and Chittoor districts. A State
241
wide bandh was called by all Opposition parties
against the “murder of democracy”. NTR said he
would go to the people all across the State.
Bhaskara Rao quickly took a series of decisions to

undo what NTR did in the previous one year. The
age of retirement was restored at 58 years, pensions
were restored to former legislators, a Rs 10 crore
development fund was given to Old City of
Hyderabad, mainly to placate the two sections of
people that supported him, the NGOs and Majlis
Ittehadul Muslimeen groups. He announced that
three marks would be added to students who failed in
SSC public examinations.
All over the Country there were angry reactions at the

way Bhaskara Rao was allowed to form a
Government with Congress (I) support. In Delhi,
leaders of 19 Opposition parties announced that they
would organise a “Bharat Bandh” to protest at the
events in Andhra Pradesh. They demanded the
removal of Governor, Ram Lal, and dismissal of the
242
“puppet Government of Bhaskara Rao”. Charan

Singh presided over the meeting attended by Jagjivan
Ram, Chandra Sekhar, A.B.Vajpayee, Ch.Rajeswara
Rao (CPI), M.Basavapunniah (CPIM), Sharad
Pawar, Tridip Chowdhary (RSP), Chitta Basu
(Forward Bloc), B.C.Kamble (RPI), Maneka Gandhi
among others. Karnataka Chief Minister,
Ramakrishna Hegde and NTR, who were to attend,
did not, because the planes they had to take were
inordinately delayed by bogus calls saying bombs
were planted in the planes.
The Opposition leaders criticised the brazenly illegal

act of the Andhra Pradesh Governor, “in collusion
with the Union Government, in a daylight conspiracy
to deprive the people of Andhra Pradesh of their
right to have a Government of their choice, as
reflected in the electoral verdict, in total violation and
disregard of all democratic norms”. They said this
was a link in the chain of events in the removal of
duly elected Governments in Pondicherry and Sikkim
earlier, and more brazenly, in Jammu and Kashmir,
243
holding the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, as “the
principal culprit”. They said that they saw evidence
of an attempt to “superimpose a nakedly
authoritarian and dynastic system, destroying our
democracy and social edifice”.
NTR decided to take his contingent of MLAs to

Delhi and present them before the President, Zail
Singh. August 18 was a tense day because there were
reports suggesting that about 500 supporters of
Bhaskara Rao would storm the Ramakrishna studios
and physically take away the MLAs. Supporters of
Opposition parties also mobilised volunteers to
guard the gate from inside the studio.
At about 11 pm, a Deputy Commissioner of Police,

K.Arvind Rao, arrived to interview about 20 MLAs
whose families alleged that they were held captive
inside the studios. The officer was permitted to meet
these MLAs and each of them said that they were
with NTR on their own free will. The super fast
Andhra Pradesh Express would leave at 6.45 am from
Secunderabad, but the NTR MLAs planned to reach
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the station before 6 am and so started in a convoy of

buses. But the buses were taken to Ramgopalpet
Police Station where an Assistant Commissioner of
Police wanted to interrogate another group of MLAs
allegedly held against their will in the studios. The
Speaker, Thangi Sathyanarayana, who was with
NTR till then, wrote to the Station Superintendent
and Director General of Police to provide reserved
accomodation to the MLAs and security during the
journey. After the interview by the ACP was over,
when they reached the station, they were told by the
Station Superintendent that all reservations were
cancelled, but they attached two bogies to the train,
which was already full with regular passengers. The
MLAs managed to squeeze into these two bogies, as
regular passengers vacated their seats in favour of
the MLAs.
The train reached 11 hours late at 6.10 pm at Delhi,

while their appointment with the President was at 6
pm. The President however received them the next
day. At Delhi, the group of 145 Telugu Desam MLAs
245
took a photograph outside the Rasthrapathi Bhavan,
and this was published in the press. There were 36
MLAs in this group, claimed by Bhaskara Rao as his
supporters in his list of 91 MLAs.
NTR’s plan was to take his MLAs along with him for
an intensive tour of Andhra Pradesh, but on the
advise of some Opposition leaders, these MLAs were
flown to Bangalore and housed in a hotel at
Chamundeswari Hills near Mysore.
On August 28, Indira Gandhi met Congress MPs

from Andhra Pradesh, and said that the BJP and RSS
were exploiting the situation, to malign her and her
party for deriving some advantage during the coming
elections. She said she was astonished that the
Opposition was disbelieving her word that she was
not consulted by the Governor, but she was pained to
see that even some of her party colleagues had fallen
prey to “this whispering campaign of
disinformation”. She wanted the Congress (I) to
support Bhaskara Rao, but gave no indication as to
what she would do if he failed to prove his majority
246
in the Assembly, whether she would impose

President’s Rule or let NTR be reinstated.
Indira Gandhi distanced herself from the crisis in

Andhra Pradesh, by telling Parliament that her
Government had no inkling of, or influence on, Ram
Lal, or of the decision of the State party unit to back
Bhaskara Rao.
The Governor, Ramlal was replaced, and Shankar

Dayal Sharma, came as Governor on August 29. He
arrived from Delhi at 8.30 am, was sworn in as
Governor at 10.30 am, and an hour later, he had 17
new Ministers inducted into the Bhaskara Rao
cabinet. P.Upendra, General Secretary of Telugu
Desam, was present at the Raj Bhavan when the
Governor was sworn in, and he introduced himself to
the new Governor. Sharma told him to stay on for a
discussion but Upendra was unwilling to attend the
cabinet expansion and wanted to go. Sharma took
Upendra aside, and told him that he would do justice,
within earshot of the press covering the function.
247
The 17 new Ministers that Bhaskara Rao inducted
included the Speaker and Deputy Speaker, who
crossed floor at the last moment, leaving the
Assembly without an head when Bhaskara Rao’s
majority was to be tested. A pro-tem Speaker had to
be appointed, and this would give time for Bhaskara
Rao to manipulate the MLAs with whom he was
unable to establish contact, and to prolong the one
month deadline that Governor Ram Lal gave
Bhaskara Rao to prove his majority.
On September 4, after meeting the Governor,

Bhaskara Rao announced that the Assembly would
meet on September 11 to enable Bhaskara Rao to test
his majority. A group of 8 MPs and 9 legislators
belonging to Congress (I) told Sharma that first, the
legislators “held hostage” should be freed.
Otherwise, no purpose would be served by convening
the Assembly. The dust should be allowed to settle
and MLAs should be free, and Governor should hold
talks with MLAs individually to ascertain their
views, these Congress MPs and MLAs said.
248
The convening of the Assembly was regarded as a

“victory for the people” by NTR. But the problem
was the threat of arrest or harassment of the MLAs
arriving from Karnataka, and NTR wrote to the
Governor and pro tem Speaker, M.Baga Reddy, to
provide security. The MLAs were coming in a convoy
of buses, accompanied by a six member team of
Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, including
K.F.Rustumji, a former Director General of Border
Security Force and Arun Shourie and Cho
Ramaswamy, Journalists. The Editors Guild also
deputed a team with S.Sahay of Statesman, Kuldip
Nayar and K.Narendra to accompany the MLAs.
NTR indeed fought a remarkable battle. He

underwent a bypass surgery on July 18, arrived in
Hyderabad on August 14 and was dismissed two days
later. He had paraded his 163 MLAs before the press
at Ramakrishna studios on August 16, at Nandi Hills
in Karnataka, before the President Zail Singh in
Delhi and before the people at a public meeting in
Ramlila Grounds in Delhi. He addressed big rallies
249
in Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore and Madras. He
once said: “Doctors asked me to take rest for 20
hours in a day while I am working for 20 hours. What
sustains me is the affection of the people. A man dies
only once, and it is better to day in the cause for
restoration of democracy, rather than like a dog in
the street”.
With power and Congress (I) support on his side,

Bhaskara Rao also was apprehensive, because of the
mobilisation of people planned for Sept 11 in
Hyderabad. Bhasakara Rao failed to show his MLAs
either to the press or to the public. He claimed the
support of 91 Telugu Desam MLAs whom he claimed
to have paraded before the Governor Ram Lal on
August 21, while on the same day, NTR presented his
163 MLAs before the President. The group released
from Delhi showed that the 36 MLAs in Bhaskara
Rao’s list were actually present in Delhi.
On the day of the Assembly session, Bhaskara Rao

claimed the support of 58 MLAs of Congress (I), two
of Rashtriya Sanjay Manch, 5 of MIM and 5
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Independents, taking his over all strength to 127 while

he required atleast 148. His future as Chief Minister
depended on his enticing atleast 21 of the 36 Telugu
Desam MLAs he claimed as his supporters. The
Union Minister for Industry, K.Vijayabhaskara
Reddy, former Chief Minister, Jalagam Vengal Rao,
were actively involved in efforts to ensure that
Bhaskara Rao got his majority.
Congress leaders confidently predicted just before the

crucial Assembly session that there was no question
of NTR coming back to power, and that at worst, the
State would be placed under President’s Rule. They
projected this as a fair conclusion, because both NTR
and Bhaskara Rao would be kept out of power as
two contending parties, while the Congress (I) would
hold the strings from Delhi.
Bhaskara Rao had his own plans to deal with the

Assembly session. On September 9, the annual
ganesh procession day, there was widespread
communal clashes in the old City areas but one khadi
shop in Basheerbagh was set on fire, and taking
251
advantage of the situation, the entire city of
Hyderabad was placed under curfew. This curfew
was to last throughout the five days of Assembly
sessions from September 11. The curfew was mainly
to frustrate the Opposition plans to hold a rally in
support of the restoration of the democracy
movement on September 11.
When the Telugu Desam MLAs arrived from

Karnataka on a convoy of four buses, Bhaskara
Rao’s plan was for the Police to detain the buses
inside Andhra Pradesh border, separate the 40 MLAs
he planned to entice, and take them to an undisclosed
destination for Bhaskara Rao’s men to “manage”
them. These MLAs would be brought straight to the
Assembly the next day. The Police did detain the
convoy at a number of places in Mahbubnagar
district but they were unable to implement the plan
because of the presence of the team from PUCL, a
Minister in Karnataka Government, M.Raghupathi,
and several national Opposition leaders.
The PUCL team said that it had not seen a more
252
blatant, or a more blatantly partisan, use of the

Police to interfere with the legislative process. “We
saw today the most disgraceful attempt by the
Government to disperse the MLAs in small groups
and take them to the places of the Police’s chosing”
The Police deliberately tried to intimidate the MLAs
so that they could precipitate an incident in which
they take further steps, the team said.
The MLAs had to collect their curfew passes from

the Assembly. The convoy of buses was stopped at
Gaganpahad, 11 kms from Hyderabad, and a
Deputy Commissioner of Police told them they have
to travel in Government buses to the Assembly. The
MLAs agreed and arrived in the Assembly at 3 pm.
The MLAs were given food packets brought by
Telugu Desam volunteers inside the Assembly. By that
time, national leaders like E.M.S.Nambudiripad and
Basavapunniah (CPIM), A.B.Vajpayee, Chandra
Rajeswara Rao (CPI), Sharad Pawar (Cong S) among
others also came to the Assembly. After curfew passes
were distributed, theMLAs went to Ramakrishna
studios.
253
On the day the Assembly met on Sept 11, the curfew
restrictions were enforced with a gusto by the City
Police, with 18 barricades placed within a distance
of one kilometre , each barricade manned by 20
armed Policemen. Police checked the passes at a
dozen places before allowing MLAs inside the
building. The entire visitors gallery was kept empty,
and no ML or MLC was allowed even as a visitor.
The Government denied passes to the foreign media
like BBC, on the ground “it is enough if the Indian
press covered the event”, but because they were sore
at the unpleasent coverage the NTR dismissal got
them in the foreign media.
At 11am when the Assembly met, M.Baga Reddy,

protem Speaker, introduced a condolence motion
touching the death of a sitting MLA, but
N.Srinivasulu Reddy rose on a point of order, and
there was an uproar, and the protem Speaker
adjourned the house within two minutes and left. A
little later, smoke was seen from a carpet near the
second row where Ministers sat. Later two Ministers
of Bhaskara Rao said this was the work of a pro-
254
NTR member, Devineni Nehru, while floor leaders of

Opposition parties it was the work of the Minister,
T.Jeevan Reddy, and the Ministers were only allowed
inside the House without frisking and he brought the
material to set the carpet on fire.
NTR met the protem Speaker after the House was

adjourned, to demand that his supporters in Telugu
Desam should be seated in a separate block, but the
protem Speaker rejected the demand. It was clear that
Bhaskara Rao wanted the Assembly session
prolonged, so that he could have an opportunity to
manipulate and obtain a legislative majority.
The Legislature Secretariat made use of the fire to

further tighten security, and asked MLAs to come one
hour before the scheduled time for thorough security
check. A 15-member anti-sabotage unit of the Army
was kept near the Assembly apart from the anti-
explosion unit of the State Police. That afternoon,
Police raided NTR’s house at Abids and arrested 22
TDP workers staying there, as NTR was staying in
Ramakrishna studios.
255
On September 12, the same story was repeated again,
and the Assembly was adjourned within a few
minutes without transacting any business. The
leaders of national Opposition parties and the TDP
MLAs met the Governor, Shankar Dayal Sharma,
and said that Bhaskara Rao should not be continued
in office beyond 30 days without a confidence vote.
After the house was adjourned without specifying for

what period, the pro-NTR MLAs continued to sit
inside the House to make doubly sure that the House
was adjourned for the day, when the pro-Bhaskara
Rao MLAs used the opportunity to pour insult and
abuse on NTR. Their strategy was to come as close
to him as they can and pointing a finger at him, to
abuse him in filthy language. Ministers in Bhaskara
Rao cabinet wrenched four mikes and used them as
sticks with which they beat the tables before them,
while one Member removed the wooden plank and
used as a weapon till a Marshall took it away.
The Congress (I) Members sat silently but they

seemed to approve the invictives hurled at NTR, who
256
sat, leaning on his walking stick, apparently

immersed in thought. His demeanour did not change
even as pro-Bhaskara Rao MLAs like Baggidi Gopal
and M.Kesava Reddy came up menacingly, as though
to physically to attack him, or MLAs like Edara
Deviah and Allam Sailu stood just one foot away
showering abuse. The 5 members of Majlis Ittehadul
Muslimeen and two Members of Sanjay Vichar
Manch joined the fray of abuse. NTR and his MLAs
endured the ordeal on all four days, as the enormous
public support they enjoyed outside threw a shield
around them, leaving them untouched.
The pro-NTR MLAs were attending the Assembly for

four days but not one of them crossed the floor, and
this made Bhaskara Rao frustrated. Bhaskara Rao
said that the MLAs were held in captivity by NTR
against their will, and if that was so, they could have
simply crossed over to Bhaskara Rao in the Assembly,
but the opposite happened. Jogi Masthaniah, a
Scheduled Caste MLA from Nellore district, was
physically lifted and was being taken away when the
257
MLA shouted for help, and had to be rescued in full
view of the press. Palakonda Rayudu, one pro-NTR
MLA was surrounded by a dozen Congress (I) MLAs
trying to persuade him to come over to Bhaskara
Rao’s side, but the man did not budge.
The pro-NTR MLAs were told to observe utmost

restraint, because Bhaskara Rao wanted them to get
provoked so that he could say the atmosphere was not
conducive to his taking a vote of confidence. In
contrast to the atmosphere of abuse inside the House,
NTR and his MLAs were cheered by large crowds on
the Lower Tank Bund road, Indira Park and RTC
cross roads as he travelled in his convoy of buses to
the Ramakrishna studios.
Then on the third day, September 13, the same story

was repeated, but this time, the protem Speaker
adjourned the House in five minutes, and 12 minutes
later, he resigned from his post, saying he was
feeling sick. The MLAs were still sitting in the
House, but the Legislature Secretary informed Baga
Reddy that he cannot enter the House again either to
258
annouce his resignation or a new date of the session.

An ambulance was brought and he was lying down
on the bed when NTR came to wish him speedy
recovery. Baga Reddy was taken to Gandhi Hospital
where Doctors said they advised him complete rest,
but the heart condition was normal and blood
pressure was under control. It was clear that
Bhaskara Rao took a gamble, and was playing for
more time, “until the MLAs were released from
captivity by NTR”. The all Party action committee
announced an Andhra Pradesh bandh for Sept 17,
saying that only a popular struggle can safeguard
democracy in the State.
On Sept 14, Bhaskara Rao said that he had fulfilled

Governor’s directive. “The vote of confidence was
listed in the agenda, and it is not my fault if the
protem Speaker failed to complete the business”.
Bhaskara Rao said there was demand from Members
for a debate on drought situation and law and order
problems. The Assembly could be convened on
September 20 to take up the condolence resolution,
259
motion of vote of confidence, the drought and law
and order situation. He said Salauddin Owaisi, the
leader of Majlis Ittehadul Muslieen group, would be
the new protem Speaker.
The 163 MLAs supporting NTR issued a statement

on Sept 14, saying that Indira Gandhi’s Government
was directing the conspiracy to dismiss NTR’s
Government, and to disrupt the Assembly
proceedings to ensure that the motion of confidence
is not taken up. “But for the support of Indira
Gandhi’s Party, and the connivence of her nominee,
the State Governor, and misuse of the Central forces
and the Army, Bhaskara Rao cannot continue in
power for a day”, they said.
Then on September 16, Governor Shankar Dayal

Sarma sent in a letter to NTR at 12.30 pm, inviting
him to form a new Ministry. This came quite like a
bolt from the blue, and electrified the atmosphere in
the Ramakrishna Studios where the MLAs were
staying. The 1.10 pm All India Radio Telugu news
bulletin was broadcast over the mike system, so that
260
MLAs could hear the text of the letter. Shankar

Dayal Sarma asked Bhaskara Rao to resign, saying
he could not win a vote of confidence within the
period of one month given to him by Governor Ram
Lal on August 16 last, and Bhaskara Rao obliged.
NTR’s second swearing-in as Chief Minister took

place at 3.48 pm in an atmosphere of festivity.
Whole of Andhra Pradesh came to know of the news,
and hundreds of people gathered along the route of
NTR’s motorcade while the Raj Bhavan Road looked
like a sea of humanity. There was still curfew in
force, but Policemen withdrew as people took to the
streets celebrating the return of NTR with the
bursting of crackers. Bhaskara Rao lost his gamble,
because he expected the Governor to convene the
Assembly on September 20, condoning one week’s
delay, but the Governor read his Constitutional
obligation differently.
Gates were opened at Raj Bhavan, and Security

personnel looked indulgently, while people freely
entered the place, plucked flowers from the flower
261
beds on the pathways and lawns, and gave bouquets
to NTR, who sat on top of the Chaitanya Ratham.
His signature tune, the “maa telugu talliki mallepu
danda” was played from the van, and youth on the
road stopped Madras Express, while the driver blew
the horn thrice to herald NTR’s return to power.
A commentator in the van said: “Last month, on the

same date, NTR left Raj Bhavan as a prisoner in a
Police lorry. Today, he is coming out as Chief
Minister. This transformation is due to people’s
upsurge and he salutes the people of the whole
Country for so valiantly responding to the call for the
struggle for the restoration of democracy”.
NTR said that the events of the previous one month

when the entire people rose to wage a struggle to
preserve our Constitution and democracy, will be
written in letters of gold in our Country’s history.
“This is proof of the growing political consciousness
of the people”. The CPI leaders Chandra Rajeswara
Rao and Indrajit Gupta, were the only national
leaders to attend the swearing in ceremony.
262
G.K.Reddy wrote in THE HINDU, that this was only

time since Independence that a Chief Minister
deposed through manipulative politics was able to
ride a crusade and return to power.
NTR won his vote of confidence in the Assembly on

September 20, with 171 votes in his favour. People
who assembled in large numbers outside the
Assembly cheered NTR as he came out of its
premises, but it was humiliating for Bhaskara Rao to
demand from the new protem Speaker,
P.Mahendranath, Police protection to go home!
That was the last of the Assembly that was elected in

the 1983 general elections. On November 22 that
year, the Andhra Pradesh Assembly was dissolved as
NTR desired to have a fresh mandate from the
people. Those were stupendous times, because
Operation Blue Star was launched in August 1984
and Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31.
Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister and scheduled
Lok Sabha elections for December 27 that year.
263
At 7 am on November 22, NTR called in N.Giri
Prasad, Secretary of CPI State Council, Nanduri
Prasada Rao, leader of CPI M) Legislature Party,
M.Venkiah Naidu, leader of BJP group in Assembly,
S.Jaipal Reddy, Janata MLA and M.Omkar, Marxist
Communist Party, and conveyed to them his decision
about dissolution. The Cabinet met at 8 am and
resolved to have the Assembly dissolved, and the Raj
Bhavan issued a communique at 10 am, dissolving
the Assembly. Bhaskara Rao and K.Rosiah,
Congress (I), met the Governor to protest at the way
the decision was taken. NTR had spoken to Rajiv
Gandhi and got his approval for the dissolution.
NTR said that when 55 of Telugu Desam MLAs

deceived the people, “I cannot excuse them. The men
who sabotaged the will of the people cannot
represent the people. The decision is to cleanse
politics”
While Rajiv Gandhi won more than 400 seats in the

Lok Sabha with the nation-wide sympathy wave for
Indira Gandhi, in Andhra Pradesh, 35 out of the 42
264
seats were won by Telugu Desam and its allies, the

people showing greater sympathy for NTR because
of the August crisis, and Telugu Desam became the
single largest Opposition group in the Lok Sabha, in
which the BJP got a mere two seats, one being
C.Janga Reddy from Andhra Pradesh who defeated
P.V.Narasimha Rao in Warangal. In March 1985
elections to the State Assembly, NTR easily came
back to power with 202 seats, while Bhaskara Rao’s
Telugu Desam, contesting from 220 seats, lost
deposits in all seats except one, and was completely
rejected by the people, by polling just one per cent of
the popular vote. Bhaskara Rao later joined
Congress (I), and served a term as Khammam MP.
Though NTR had two thirds majority in the

Assembly, he did not have a single Member belonging
to Telugu Desam in the Legislative Council.
Normally, any Chief Minister would have engineered
defections from the Congress or Independents to get a
working majority in the Council, but NTR was
committed to the idea of abolishing the Council, and
265
so made no effort to garner support. The Congress
therefore used its two thirds majority in the Council
to stall non-money bills, forcing the Telugu Desam
Government to re-promulgate Ordinances again and
again, which was considered anti-democratic.
Syed Mukassir Shah was Chairman of the Council

while K.Rosiah was Leader of Opposition. The
Telugu Desam Ministers were able to defend the
Government bills, but these bills would surely be
voted down. Telugu Desam would have liked the
Congress to get the bills defeated in the Council, for
then, the Government could introduce the bills again
in the Assembly and have them adopted, which would
automatically become law as the Constitution
provided for this procedure. But, the Congress
adopted the technique of referring these bills to a
Select Committee, and thus stall the passage of the
bills. At the end of each session of the Legislature,
the Government had to repromulgate the Ordinance
in order to keep the law in force.
A bill to amend the Panchayat Raj Act, to introduce
266
the Mandal system in the place of Taluqs, was thus

stalled. The Minister piloting the bill, Karanam
Ramachandra Rao, refused to serve on the Select
Committee, but the Council Chairman ruled that
since he was the Minister piloting the bill, he had to
head the Select Committee.
In January 1985, the Governor, Dr Shankar Dayal

Sharma, did not initially repromulgate an Ordinance
banning the posts of Village Officers (such as
Karanams, Munisiffs in the Andhra and Patels and
Patwaris in Telengana region). The then President of
Andhra Pradesh Congress (I) Committee, Dr
Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy, said that the Governor was
conferring definite electoral advantage to Telugu
Desam by refusing to repromulgate the Ordinance
because “the Governor was in collusion with the
Chief Minister”. NTR rejected the charge, saying
that the Congress was interested in bringing back the
discredited system.
The Village officers challenged the Ordinance in the

Supreme Court, which gave a stay, but the stay was
267
vacated in March 1984. The Ordinance was
repromulgated on March 21, on June 7 and on July
19, and it lapsed on December 6, 1984. An Ordinance
has to be promulgated by a Governor only if he is
“satisfied” that conditions exist and in a judgment,
the Allahabad High Court said that successive
repromulgation of the Ordinance “was a new
practice indulged in by several State Governments
which is not consistent with the Constitution”. The
petitioner had alleged that the “Governor’s
satisfaction was a colourable exercise of power”.
The Bihar Government promulgated 203 Ordinances

in 1981. The Chota Nagpur Tenance (Amendment)
Ordinance promulgated in February 1971 and was
kept alive through repromulgations for five years
until it was made into a law in February 1976.
While the Legislative Council was thus used to stall

legislation, another development took place,
targetting Ch.Ramoji Rao, Editor of Eenadu. The
daily had published a news report about heated
exchanges in the Council and titled it: “peddala
268
galaabha”, which could be translated as “elders

noise”. The Legislative Council is also called the
House of Elders. A BJP member moved a privelege
notice against Ramoji Rao and other staff of
Eenadu, which the Priveleges Committee upheld, and
the Council decided to bring Ramoji Rao to the bar
of the House and censure him.
Ramoji Rao moved the Supreme Court and obtained

a stay of the proceedings, but the Council Chairman,
Mukassir Shah, directed the Police Commissioner of
Hyderabad, K.Vijayarama Rao, to arrest Ramoji
Rao and bring him to the Council hall, or else
Vijayarama Rao would be punished for contempt.
There was a big drama in the Council one day, when
a small platform was created and a chair provided
for Ramoji Rao to come to the bar of the House to
receive a censure. The Council was in session, with all
the Members in attendance, waiting for Ramoji Rao
brought before the bar but nothing happened. The
Police Commissioner sent a letter to the Council
Chairman stating that he will commit contempt of
269
the Supreme Court if he arrested Ramoji Rao,
because the Editor got a stay from the Court, and the
Commissioner would commit contempt of the
Legislative Council if he did not bring Ramoji Rao to
the Council. Vijayarama Rao then sought the advice
the State Government, which was not forthcoming.
That was the last of the Legislative Council. The

Council was adjourned sine die that day, and in
August 1984, NTR’s Government was dismissed, it
was reinstated in September 1984, and in October, the
Assembly was dissolved. At the national level also,
Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, and
Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister in December
1984. Having come to power with more than 400
MPs in Congress, Rajiv Gandhi immediately
introduced the Anti-Defection Bill, and NTR gave his
full support to the bill, though a number of political
parties wanted changes.
Then NTR went to Delhi and met Rajiv Gandhi.

The Prime Minister wanted to somehow compensate
NTR for the way his Government was dismissed in
270
1984,and he asked him for a choice of two wishes

from which he could bestow one to NTR. NTR
asked for the abolition of the Legislative Council,
and a one time grant of Rs 100 crores for Telugu
Ganga project. Rajiv Gandhi agreed for the abolition
of the Council.
On April 30, 1985 the Assmbly again adopted a

resolution demanding abolition of the Council. This
was introduced in Parliament soon after and the
Council was abolished.
271
NTR, Congress & National Front
NTR was chastened by the August 1984 political

crisis and the next five years of his term as Chief
Minister was marked by a constant fight with the
Congress (I) Government at the Centre, and with
Congress (I) leaders in the State. He had a bad press
and appeared to be always at the receiving end. His
wife, Basavatarakam, died of cancer at Bombay in
September, 1984, and he appeared to be feeling lonely.
He concentrated on building up a national
alternative to the Congress (I). When Rajiv Gandhi
became Prime Minister, in October, 1984, NTR
looked forward to have a friendly working
relationship with him, and extended complete
support for the Anti-Defection bill introduced in
Parliament, the only Opposition leader to have done
so. Rajiv Gandhi reciprocated by abolishing the
Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council. But from then,
the attack on NTR continued both at the national
and State levels, through a series of agitations, court
cases, and allegations of corruption, casteism and so
on in the Assembly and outside.
272
In the administration also, NTR continued to make a

series of mistakes. He suddenly increased the quota
of reservation for the Backward Classes from 25 per
cent to 33 per cent, leading to a big agitation, and it
was suspended only when the Courts stayed the
Order. As Chief Minister, NTR performed the
marriage of his last daughter with a businessman
from Coimbatore, who turned out to have had a
relationship with another woman, and had financial
troubles. One day he advised his daughter to ask for
a divorce, and that day he asked his entire Cabinet to
submit their resignation letters, forwarded them to
the Governor, and had them dismissed. Only the
Chief Minister was in office without a cabinet for the
next five days. He grew impatient with his party
rank and file also, and at the Vijayawada party
mahanadu in 1988, he asked those that wanted him
to change his style of functioning to leave the Party.
“I will not change. The Party has come with me, and
you have to change to keep pace”, he had said.
At the time of the first Opposition conclave he
273
organised, NTR attacked Indira Gandhi’s
authoritarian attitude towards non-Congress
Governments in the States, asserting that the Centre
discriminated between States ruled by Congress and
non-Congress parties in the matter of grant of
Central funds for welfare schemes and so on. NTR
criticised the Operation Blue Star, when Indian Army
marched into the Golden Temple at Amritsar, and the
subsequent killing of Sikhs, saying that was not the
way to deal with the problem.
The Sarkaria Commission was enquiring into

Centre-State relations, and NTR wanted its terms
amended, to make allotment of funds for welfare
programmes in the States given according to a
formula in which the Centre had no discretionary
power to increase or decrease amounts. Since 50 per
cent of funds for these welfare schemes were given by
State Governments, he gave them Telugu names,
resulting in Congress leaders creating a furore that he
was trying to snatch credit for schemes implemented
by Indira Gandhi’s Government.
274
NTR said the Congress came to power on a minority

vote, benefitting by a split in Opposition vote
because of the presence of many Opposition
candidates. If the Opposition parties could make a
fair assessment of their strengths and weaknesses,
decide which among them had the best chance of
defeating the Congress (I), and if a single candidate
of Opposition was in contest, surely the Congress (I)
can be defeated. He was aware of the ego problems
of Opposition leaders, but strove to evolve a
consensus on national issues, starting from the first
Opposition conclave he organised in Vijayawada on
May 29, 1983 his first birthday in office as Chief
Minister, when the Telugu Desam Party mahanadu
(general body) was held.
NTR’s first meeting was a success, though it was held

in scorching heat in Vijayawada, and the attack was
on the Congress (I)’s performance which was
reducing the importance of States, centralising power
in the hands of the Prime Minister, and Indira
Gandhi’s authoritarian rule. The next meeting was
275
held in Delhi, and 45 leaders from 16 parties
attended it. The Congress (J) stalwart Jagjivan Ram
was there, as also D.K.Barooah of Congress (S),
Chandra Rajeswara Rao of CPI,
E.M.S.Nambudiripad of CPI (M), H.N.Bahuguna of
Democratic Socialist Party, Chitta Basu of Forward
Block, Chandrasekhar and Madhu Dandavate of
Janata, Chowdhary Charan Singh of Lok Dal, Dr
Farooq Abdullah of National Conference, Tridib
Chowdhary of RSP (I), R.S.Gavai and
B.D.Khobragade of Republican Party and Ratubhai
Adani of Rashtriya Congress. NTR invited Jagjivan
Ram to preside over the meeting, but the latter said
there is no need for anyone to preside and talks could
be informal.
The leaders took note of “ominous pronouncements”

of the Prime Minister against the Opposition, mainly
the remark that “existence of the Opposition itself
was the cause for the present state of affairs in the
Country”. The leaders said that the Centre was
encroaching upon the state’s powers contrary to the
276
spirit of the Constitution, and called for a review of

the Centre-State relations. The leaders demanded
that the scope of the Sarkaria Commission should be
enlarged, and its terms of reference decided only after
consultations with the State Governments and the
Opposition parties in Parliament.
There was a lull in his unity moves during 1984,

because of his own political crisis in which he lost
power during a Congress (I) supported coup for a
brief period of one month, the assassination of
Indira Gandhi in October, and the general elections
of December, 1984. NTR’s bitter experience brought
him closer to national Opposition leaders, who
visited Hyderabad to express their solidarity during
his political crisis, such as Atal Behari Vajpayee,
Jyothi Basu, E.M.S.Nambudiripad, Indrajit Gupta,
Farooq Abdullah, Chandrasekhar and
M.Karunanidhi,
In January 1986, NTR assembled Opposition leaders

at Hyderabad wherein leaders of 13 parties issued a
statement criticising Rajiv Gandhi’s speech at the
277
Congress Centenary celebrations. These Opposition
leaders said that “instead of observing it as a
national event, it was used to launch an intemperate
and irresponsible attack on non-Congress (I) parties,
especially regional parties, dubbing them as anti-
national” Dubbing the democratic aspirations of the
people of several States as anti-national “is itself a
gross anti-national act. Patriotism is not the
monopoly of any particular party”, they said.
This declaration was signed by three Chief Ministers,

N.T.Rama Rao, Ramakrishna Hegde of Karnataka
and Surjit Singh Barnala of Punjab, besides
K.P.Unnikrishnan of Congress (S), Dinesh Goswami
of Asom Gana Parishad, Abdul Rashid Kabuli of
National Conference, C.T.Dandapani of DMK,
Ram Naresh Yadav of Samata Party, B.B.Lyngdoh of
Meghalala among others. They criticised the lop-
sided economic policies of the Centre, the elitist
approach of the 7th Five Year Plan document, the
Centre’s discriminatory attitude towards non-
Congress Governments etc. They congratulated
278
Asom Gana Parishad for winning elections in Assam,

and demanded dismissal of a “defectors
Government headed by G.M.Shah in Jammu and
Kashmir”.
In 1988, the National Peoples Front finally took

shape. Representatives of six political parties met at
Delhi on July 12 and 13 and approved a draft, and
NTR circulated the drafts of the Constitution of the
NPF or Rashtriya Jan Morcha. The original draft
described it as a “Front of like-minded political
parties – both national and regional – with the
parties retaining their respective identities”. In
Parliament, members belonging to Front parties were
to form into a single group. The Group will elect a
leader in each House. There will be a chairman and
other office bearers for the Parliamentary group
consisting of Members of both Houses. Among its
aims and objects was listed: “to build up a
Democratic, Secular and Socialist State in India and
provide a clean and efficient administration for the
country with emphasis on equality and social justice.
279
It will ensure decentralisation of economic and
political power in the true federal spirit”. There were
seven constituent parties – the Janata, Lok Dal,
Congress (S), Telugu Desam, Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam, Asom Gana Parishad and Jan Morcha.
NTR was elected Chairman while V.P.Singh was the
Convenor. NTR convened a meeting of the seven
parties in the Andhra Bhavan in Delhi on August 6
and 7 to approve the draft constitution, and here the
name of the front was changed from National
Peoples Front to National Front.
By then, the Fairfax affair, the probe ordered by

V.P.Singh as Defence Minister into certain defence
deals, and the Bofors issue came to the top of
agenda. NTR said that the quick succession of these
events that rocked the nation, cannot be dismissed as
some isolated aberration in the conduct of national
affairs. “The Punjab issue continues to be a
smouldering couldron. The festering sore of the
foreigners issue in the North East continues to elude a
solution. The non-Congress (I) States continue to
280
nurse the feeling of distrust, discrimination and

deprivation by the Centre.”
On August 10, NTR went to Calcutta to participate

in a symposium organised by the West Bengal Chief
Minister, Jyoti Basu, on “Why a national alternative
and how?” NTR said for five years, he had been
constantly striving to unite all the elements of
Opposition in order to deliver a frontal attack on
Congress (I) and dislodge it from the “commanding
heights of power and authority”. He commented
that it looked as though the mololithic party
acquired a prescriptive and dynastic right. “My
opposition is not to Congress (I) as such. My
opposition is to bad Government, mis-Government
and a corrupt Government. The question to be
debated should not be why there shall be a national
alternative, but why we have made such inordinate
delay in building it up”, NTR said.
Finally, the National Front was launched at a big

rally organised by DMK in Madras on September 17,
a rally so huge that it took three hours for the
281
procession to cross a point. Four Chief Ministers
addressed the public meeting – NTR, S.R.Bommai
(Karnataka), P.K.Mohanta (Assom), Devi Lal
(Haryana) besides V.P.Singh and M.Karunanidhi.
NTR told the public meeting that “the Congress
rules, not with the authority of popular will, but
through the weakness and disunity of Opposition,
not by virtue of efficiency and moral stature, but
with the help of money and muscle power. Its writ
cannot run any more”
As Convenor of the NF, V.P.Singh released a 71 point

common minimum programme, which consisted of
social and economic justice, prevention of attrocities
on scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and women,
effective measures to prevent caste and communal
conflicts, removing imbalance in fiscal, legislative
and administrative relations between Centre and
States, and so on. H.N.Bahuguna, President of Lok
Dal, was made chairman of a committee to chalk out
an action plan for the Front constituents.
NTR finally succeeded in putting National Front in
282
power in the 1989 general elections and V.P.Singh

became Prime Minister. But NTR suffered a setback
in Andhra Pradesh, when Telugu Desam was
defeated by Congress (I) in the Assembly elections
which were held simulteneously. NTR was depressed,
but still he wanted to do his duty as Chairman, and
went to Delhi for a day to chair a meeting of the
National Front, but returned to Hyderabad the same
evening. The public focus was on V.P.Singh, and
NTR felt sidelined because of his defeat in his home
turf. A number of speculative reports appeared that
NTR being the Chairman of National Front, he
would have liked to become Deputy Prime Minister,
but NTR was dignified enough to say that his place
was in Andhra Pradesh, to a life as Leader of
Opposition in the State assembly, preparing for
another battle in the 1994 general elections.
From January 1983 to November 1989, when NTR

was in power, there was a virtual war of words
between him and the Congress leaders ranging from
Union Ministers to local chieftains. Congressmen
283
appeared to vie with each other to denigrate NTR in
order to win the approval of the Party High
Command. Congressmen considered NTR as a
novice, an upstart, and a fool – and they said so to
his face. In August 1987, Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi visited Neerukonda village in Guntur district,
when the Union Minister for Planning, P.Shivshankar,
told NTR “Don’t talk like a fool” in the presence of
the Prime Minister. In this visit, a woman told the
Prime Minister that there was fire in her house on
July 15, and she extinguished the fire and left. This
was translated by Shivshankar as: “She says the
people in the village left in panic, and there was no
one in the village”. NTR asked Shivshankar not to
misinterpret the remarks whereupon Shivshankar
made that comment. During a campaign for
Panchayat elections in 1986, Union Minister, Jalagam
Vengal Rao said, referring to NTR: “I can kick him
like a football and he will fall in Madras”. The
implication is that NTR who spent 30 years in
Madras for his films, would wind up his show as
Chief Minister in Andhra Pradesh and go back to
284
Madras if he were to be defeated in the Panchayat

polls. Vengal Rao told NTR: “You are Chief
Minister for one State, and I am Union Minister for
25 States in the Country”. The elections to the local
bodies came a few days after Zail Singh laid down
office as President, and he said, that he was offered
Rs 30 crores to dismiss Rajiv Gandhi’s Government
by a man he refused to name. Without any second
thought, Jalagam Vengal Rao said in his speeches
that it was NTR who offered the money to the
President. After a few days, Zail Singh identified the
person as Chandraswamy, and revealed he wanted
P.V.Narasimha Rao to be installed as Prime Minister.
Then there was Buta Singh, Union Home Minister,

who came for a campaign for a by-election to Guntur
Zilla Parishad in December, 1986, and told a public
meeting: “Why should this fellow (a reference to
NTR) go to Nagaland?”, referring to NTR
campaigning against the Congress in Nagaland.
Buta Singh said that NTR “stole crores of rupees
from Income Tax. He has acquired property worth
285
crores of rupees. I am not saying this. The Andhra
Pradesh High Court has said all this.” The fact was
that the High Court did not say this. It was the
contention of a Congress (I) leader in his affadavit in
the Court. Buta Singh said that NTR was “hand in
glove with separatist forces and was trying to divide
the Country into pieces”.
A funny thing happened when K.K.Tiwari, Union

Minister for Public Enterprises, visited Tirupati and
Hyderabad in June, 1986, and gave a call to Congress
cadres to “engage in street demonstrations to save
Andhra Pradesh from Telugu Desam rule and fill up
the jails” demanding the dismissal of NTR’s
Government. He explained at a press conference that
the provocation for that statement was the conclave
of Opposition leaders organised by NTR at
Vijayawada three years ago, at which, Tiwari said, a
resolution was adopted to pull down the
constitutioanally elected Government of Indira
Gandhi. Asked how he came to know of such a
resolution without it being reported in the press,
286
Tiwari said that was the “only objective of the

conclave”. Asked why he kept quiet for three years,
he said he became a Minister only one month earlier,
and so he wanted to criticise the conclave in which
diverse forces from BJP to CPI (M) ganged up against
Indira Gandhi. Tiwari went on to assert that the Rs
2 per kg programme represented “the philosophy of a
feudal lord whose mind is utterly reactionary because
it would keep the poor in perpetual poverty”. Asked
what he thought of the Central scheme in which rice
and wheat was distributed at Rs 1.85 per kg in tribal
areas, Tiwari said it was “a very good programme
because it helped the poorest of the poor”. When
told that Congress leaders claimed that the Rs 2 a kg
scheme was launched by them, Tiwari replied they
would not have said that. When told that
P.Shivshankar, Union Minister, said that the Centre
gave the entire subsidy for the scheme, Tiwari said:
“Whatever their views, I am giving my individual
opinion. We are in the Opposition. What elese do you
expect us to do in Andhra Pradesh?”.
287
NTR had another problem with Kumudben Joshi,
who became Governor on November 26, 1985 after
Shankar Dayal Sharma left. She was an unmarried
woman, but she directed that she should be addressed
as “Srimathi” or “Mrs” and not as “Miss” or
“Kumari”. Congress leaders called her a “people’s
Governor” who attended 1,200 functions in one year!
This works out to 3.5 functions per day!
During Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Hyderabad for a three

hour visit on December 22, 1987, there was an
incident. Sonia Gandhi, as the wife of the Prime
Minister, asked whether the man in a safari suit was
indeed P.Upendra, Leader of Telugu Desam
Parliamentary Party. The Prime Minister confirmed
this, and went along with the Governor to meet
Congress ex-Ministers. But Upendra, completely
shaken, said later that Sonia Gandhi told him: “I will
see to your end, if I am alive, for what you said about
me in Parliament”. Sonia Gandhi went with the
Governor to Raj Bhavan and returned with
Kumudben Joshi an hour before the PM’s departure,
288
and got down from the car right at the steps of the
aircraft. Solnia Gandhi was confronted by
V.Hanumantha Rao, Joint Secretary of Andhra
Pradesh Congress Committee, who briefed her about
Upendra’s allegation. From gestures seen from a
distance, Hanumantha Rao apparently was
requesting her to personally deny the allegation but
she ignored his pleadings and climbed into the
aircraft.
Kumudben Joshi sat for some time on a sofa in the

shamiana, but suddenly called for her car, drove out,
stopped the Prime Minister’s convoy midway, got into
the PM’s car and travelled with him to the airport.
The Prime Minister met the press immediately on
arrival to deny that his wife was capable of
threatening anyone, and then the Governor
intervened to say: “It is all lies”.
There was a running feud between the Governor and

Telugu Desam functionaries. N.Srinivasulu Reddy, as
Revenue Minister, used to describe Joshi as a
“Congress agent” who converted “the Raj Bhavan
289
into a Rajiv Bhavan”. The Governor would call for
files from the Secretariat, and the Congressmen used
to criticise with the strength of the inside
information.
Case against NTR
The Congress used various strategies to put NTR on

the mat. One such strategy was to pin him down in a
legal case and derive political mileage. This was
done when a Congress (I) leader, Dronamraju
Sathyanarayana, filed a public interest litigation
against NTR in the Andhra Pradesh High Court in
1987.
His affadavit ran to 193 pages and listed 196

allegations against the Chief Minister, and it
included wild allegations that he allowed Kamma
people to enter Indian Administrative and Police
Services and occupy important positions, though
NTR had nothing to do with people who passed All
India Civil Services examinations in the routine
course in 1960s and entered the IAS or IPS. The
290
allegations related to fiscal crimes, breaches of fiscal

laws, acts of personal corruption and dishonesty,
political patronage to people belonging to Kamma
caste, favouritism, misappropriation of funds,
bringing about breakdown of the Constitutional
machinery as also anarchy, extermination of
Naxalites in fake encounters, lock-up deaths etc. The
petitioner said that all these allegations “have to be
read as a whole, with specific reference to the type of
allegations and the reliefs sought”.
These petitions were quickly disposed. Dronamraju

filed four writ petitions on August 24, 1987 and a
Division Bench took up the petitions for hearing on
September 27. A full bench commenced arguments on
the admissibility of the writs on October 24. On
November 2, the full bench of three Judges admitted
two writs, one seeking a direction to the Centre to
appoint a Commission of Inquiry, and another
seeking a direction to prosecute the Chief Minister
for violation of Income Tax Act, Wealth Tax Act etc.
Arguments in the two writ petitions began before a
291
5-Judge Bench of the High Court on December 15,
and the arguments were concluded on December 31,
and judgment delivered on January 2, 1988. The
Chief Justice K.Bhaskaran, retired from service a few
days later.
Notice was given to the Attorney General,

K.Parasaran, to assist the Court as an amicus curiea.
Nani Palkhivala appeared for NTR at the admission
stage and contested mainly the locus standi of the
petitioner to raise the issues. A brief counter
affadavit was filed by the Chief Minister questioning
the locus standi and the jurisdiction of the Court to
grant the relief prayed for.
One of the allegations was that NTR declared in

1985, after he became Chief Minister, a personal
income of Rs 7.50 lakhs and a wealth of Rs 51 lakhs
for his joint family, in respect of which he evaded tax,
under the voluntary disclosure scheme. The Judges
said: “According to Counsel for the petitioner, in the
file relating to the Chief Minister, the Union Finance
Minister had written that this was a clear case of
292
evasion of tax. The petitioner contended that under

the voluntary disclosure scheme, the Chief Minister
might escape the penal consequences, but this did not
and should not mean that he did not forfeit his moral
right to continue in office of the Chief Minister,
particularly in view of the fact that people adored
such dignitaries as idols, placing so much confidence
in their integritity and sense of fairplay”.
Now, this was clearly an unfair allegation because

the Vountary Disclosure of Income was promulgated
on October 8, 1975, the scheme lapsed on January 1,
1976 and therefore the question of NTR making a
disclosure in 1985, after becoming Chief Minister, did
not arise. NTR sought criminal prosecution of the
petitioner for making such a baseless allegation.
But the High Court relied on the affadavit of the

petitioner, in which he said that the affadavit filed by
NTR “was conspicious by the absense of any denial
of allegation” relating to the 1985 disclosure, and
hence the allegation was considered as true. Since
the petition contained 196 allegations, NTR’s
293
counter affadavit before the full bench, at the time of
admissibility of the petition, denied all allegations in
general, but that was not enough. The Court said:
“According to the petitioner, going by the dictum laid
down by the Supreme Court in the decision which led
to the resignation of N.Sanjiva Reddy, it was
legitimate for the Court to draw an inference that the
allegations in the affadavit in relation to the evasion
of tax by the Chief Minister was true and correct”.
The reference was to Neelam Sanjiva Reddy’s
resignation as Chief Minister in 1964, because he did
not specifically deny the charge of mala fide in
taking up for nationalisation a particular bus route
in Kurnool district, and the fact he did not deny the
allegation, was regarded as acceptance of the
allegation by Sanjiva Reddy.
The Court went on: “His question to us was whether

the Chief Minister, who was a self-proclaimed tax
offender, would have the moral courage to enforce
taxation laws in the State, or to take action against
people who evaded or defaulted in the payment of
294
tax. We take it that the question put to us by Counsel

for the petitioner is rather addressed to the Chief
Minister himself. Even accepting that healthy
democratic traditions demand the resignation of the
Chief Minister, not only when he forfeits the
confidence of the majority of the Members of the
Legislative Assembly, but also when it is shown that
he is guilty of moral turpitude, and is therefore
unworthy of holding the exalted office, the call for
action has to come from within. It is not a matter of
compulsion from outside…The moral and ethical
standards might differ from person to person. What
might shock the conscience of one person might not
cause even a stir in the mind of another”.
The Congress (I) got the maximum advantage out of

this observation, and the Union Minister of State for
Home, P.Chidambaram, quoted this in full in
Parliament asserting that NTR ought to have
resigned because of these “strictures”. When NTR
filed an affadavit showing how false the allegations
had been, the High Court in its judgment dated
January 2, 1988 said :
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“The charge that the Chief Minister disclosed in
1985 an income and wealth is totally false, says Ram
Jethmalani, Counsel for Chief Minister. But the
falsity does not pertain to the declaration under the
voluntary declaration scheme. It relates to the year in
which the declaration was made. Counsel for the
petitioner, S.Ramachandra Rao, fairly conceded that
the declaration was made in 1975 and by mistake, the
year was given as 1985 in the affadavit of the
petitioner. The lapse is there. The Chief Minister
however had sufficient opportunity to bring it to the
attention of the Court when a notice was issued to
him before the petitions were admitted. He did not
chose to controvert the claim in his counter affadavit.
So the factual error crept into the judgment. As
between the petitioner and the first respondent (CM),
who is to blame? We do not want to apportion the
blame”.
The judgment and the manner in which it was made

use of by Congress (I) leaders had a very adverse
impact on NTR and Telugu Desam. NTR and the
296
Telugu Desam did not effectively rebut the judgment

or explain the political implications of the petition.
First, one makes 196 wild allegations, and later,
because the Chief Minister did not specifically deny
allegation X, it is considered true and a stricture is
passed, and when the falsity of allegation is brought
to notice, the question becomes one of apportioning
blame as between the petitioner and NTR. This was
not the way the issue was presented to the people.
NTR was advised by one Telugu Desam lawyer

Member of Parliament, who subsequently went over
to the Congress (I), not to talk of the judgement lest
it would be treated as contempt of court. NTR had
very poor advice from his Secretariat and legal
officers, and there was the additional problem of
TDP leaders deliberately giving him untenable
advice. But four national Opposition MPs issued a
statement taking exception to the way a judgment of
139 pages was delivered in less than 48 hours after
hearing ended, and that too on a non-working day,
during the vacation. Arun Nehru, Arif Mohammed
297
Khan and Satyapal Malik of Jan Morch and
K.P.Unnikrishnan of Congress (S) said “the oddities
of the case are so many as to create grave disquiet”.
These MPs noted that Attorney General K.Parasaran
made a formal statement before the Andhra Pradesh
High Court , that if the Court was of the prima facie
view that the matter was appropriate for enquiry, as
Attorney General he would advise the Government to
order an enquiry. The MPs said:”We wonder if
Mr Parasaran would make a similar statement in the
Supreme Court in the event a petition is filed against
the Prime Minister for appointment of a regular
Commission of Inquiry to probe into charges in the
Bofors scandal”.
The Telugu Desam Legislature Party said that while

the Court was extremely considerate to the petitioner
in glossing over his averment of a 1985 disclosure of
income, it did not, with the same genorosity, retract
its observation in the judgment based on such a false
averment.
Ram Jethmalani argued that the High Court should
298
not disregard rules relating to the pleadings. He felt

the case was a “political interest litigation, not a
public interest litigation” He said the Chief Minister
should be told what the actual case against him was,
if the Court was to scrutinise any specific instance
alleged by the petitioner in his voluminous affadavit.
And unless the petitioner was directed to put his
house in order, by properly amending his affadavit
and seeking appropriate relief, the Court should not
proceed any further. “It is the contention of the
Chief Minister that the petition discloses no cause for
action, its pleadings and averments are vague, prolix,
rolled up, scandalous, and false. The petition is a
perplexing misjoinder of desparate complaints. The
reliefs and allegations cannot be correlated”,
Jethmalani said. The Court rejected these points of
view.
The five Judges also said that it was “an

extraordinary case, without any parallel, a unique
public interest litigation which seeks to explore the
realms of accountability”. The hearing and
299
arguments in the case went on till the end of the
sitting on December 30, and the State’s Advocate
General, E.Manohar, got up to reply to some of the
points raised by the Attorney General, K.Parasaran,
who appeared as amicus curiae, as they were all
executive actions. But Manohar’s presence and
attempt to draw the attention of the Court were
ignored.
The Court said that NTR had abused his official

position in respect of five allegations against him.
These related to the establishment of a telephones
instruments factory by Naren Rajan, fourth son-in-
law of the Chief Minister, change of use of the
Ramakrishna studios lands, reduction in the value of
the land from Rs 40 to Rs 15 per square yard, and a
reduction of compounding fee from Rs 20,000 to Rs
1,000, failure on the part of Chief Minister to take
action to withdraw exemption and resume of the
Nacharam lands after the Ramakrishna Cine studios
ceased to be a cine studio, granting exemption from
payment of entertainment tax in respect of
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Ramakrishna cinema theatre owned by the Chief

Minister’s family, and setting up of L’avenir Steels
Private Limited in Medak district.
Naren Rajen and NTR’s daughter were divorced a

year later, and the telephone instrument factory did
not come up. The Ramakrishna theatres were given
exemption from payment of entertainment tax
during the days the areas were placed under curfew
for communal trouble, or due to other disturbances.
In 1970s, the State Government allotted 30 acres of
land to Akkineni Nageswara Rao to set up a film
studio in Jubilee Hills, along with 30 acres to Apollo
Hospitals to set up a Corporate Hospital, at the rate
of Rs 7,000 per acre. At that time, NTR already had
a Ramakrishna Studio in Musheerabad, and he
asked for about half an acre of Government land so
that his studio could have contiguous area. The
other two were given lands at a cheap price while
NTR was asked to pay Rs 40 per yard. The
allegation was that he had this reduced to Rs 15 per
yard by misusing his position as Chief Minister.
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Nobody took it seriously, when on January 4, NTR
offered to resign in the light of the judgment, at an
extended meeting of Telugu Desam Legislature Party,
Telugu Desam Parliamentary Party, Chairmen of
Zilla Parishads, Convenors of district units. They of
course unanimously rejected the offer. That looked
like an event stage managed to serve a routine
purpose. Jalagam Vengal Rao, as Union Minister,
described this as a “farce”, saying that NTR ought to
have resigned after the Court passed strictures. He
rejected the Telugu Desam allegation that the Court
process was part of a toppling game by the Congress
(I), asserting that the Centre was not interested in
toppling the Telugu Desam Government.
In an editorial titled “An Amazing Verdict”, the

Indian Express said, on January 4, 1988, that the
High Court performed the incredible feat of rejecting
the plea before it, and yet keeping it open in a
disguised form by a colourable exercise of judicial
power. “The result is a legal conundrum. The Chief
Minister’s conduct, to adjudicate which a
302
Commission of Inquiry was sought and rejected, has

already been pronounced on. It is a patent injustice.
Having dismissed the writs, the High Court became
functus officio with no further jurisdiction. Despite
the position in law, the oral prayer of the petitioner’s
counsel, and the amicus curiae, if Mr Parasaran
could be so described in this case, has been virtually
treated by the Court as a new writ in a new petition.
It remains for us to congratulate the Court on its
amazing power to exert in the cause of expeditious
execution of the matter before it. The judgment runs
to 139 pages. It was ready to be delivered after due
consultation among the five Judges within an elapsed
time after hearing closed of less than 48 hours. Yet it
was summoned on a Saturday, not normally a
working day for Courts, at short notice. Such zeal in
the cause of duty is unexceptional”.
In fact, the Chief Justice took just two minutes to

read the operative portion of the judgment, which
assembled at 2 pm on January 2. After that, the
Court adjourned.
303
There was another case concerning the date of birth
of the Chief Justice K.Bhaskaran. The Supreme
Court, on January 8, 1988, asked the Standing
Counsel for the Government of India to give
information on whether the President of India had
taken steps to consult the Chief Justice of Supreme
Court on the matter. A petitioner said that
Bhaskaran had completed 62 years on September 4,
1985, and ought to have been superannuated,
according to the birth register maintained in the
Eruvatty village office in Kerala. The petitioner
alleged that February 10, 1925 was recorded as date
of birth in the admission register of an elementary
school in Ancharnakandy village, but this was
subsequently altered as February 2, 1926 without
authentication. Bhaskaran also served in the Army
from 1942 to 47, and at the time of entry he should
atleast have been 18 years of age. When Bhaskaran
became an Additional Judge of Kerala High Court in
1972, a law journal published in Kerala, mentioned
his date of birth as January 2, 1926. The Supreme
Court dismissed the petition on January 19, on the
304
ground the petitioner had no locus standi, and a

Judge asked whether the petitioner had any pending
case before Mr Justice Bhaskaran.
The High Court judgment being delivered within 48

hours of the conclusion of arguments, was defended
by E.Ella Reddy, President of Andhra Pradesh Bar
Council, on the ground “once the judgment was
ready, there was no point in unnecessarily keeping it
without being pronounced”. Ella Reddy said that
most of the Judges programmed to leave Hyderabad
on January 2 or 3 for the Sankranti vacation, and
once the judgment was ready, it was pronounced.
The Chief Justice, K. Bhaskaran, retired from service
during that vacation.
The petitioner, Dronamraju Sathyanarayana,

achieved his political objective of becoming a
Member of Rajya Sabha again, while the lawyer that
appeared for him, S.Ramachandra Rao, became
Advocate General when NTR became Chief Minister
in December, 1994. But during the second political
crisis in which NTR lost power, Ramachandra Rao
305
sided with N.Chandrababu Naidu, and returned to
his practice later.
Vangageeti Mohan Ranga’s murder
The one single incident that caused immense harm to

N.T.Rama Rao’s credibility as a leader and partly
contributed to his defeat in the 1989 general elections
was the murder of a Congress (I) MLA, Vangaveeti
Mohana Ranga Rao, while he was sitting in a fast on
a public road in Vijayawada on 26 December 1988.
NTR’s Government appeared paralysed in the face of
widespread retaliatory actions taken by the Kapus in
the coastal districts against the Kammas in the area,
which left about 20 people dead, while 500 cases of
arson were registered in Vijayawada alone in three
days, and Police opened fire in 28 places in that town.
Vijayawada had a history of rowdysm and

factionalism since the 1950s. It started with the
establishment of a Sitarama Samajam to celebrate
Sri Rama Navami in Vijayawada, where the birthday
of Rama is celebrated in a week long festival, in
306
which mythological plays and dances are organised

in “pandals” put up at street corners. People used to
congregate in the evenings and had their quota of
entertainment. The organisers however started to
extort money from traders and businessmen and a
number of rowdy elements entered the Samajam to
acquire stature and respectablity, but they soon got
into rowdy fights to demarcate their localities of
power. To counter this, a CPI leader Venkataratnam
organised a group of people, including some anti-
social elements, and the two groups clashed several
times. One day in the 1960s, the CPI man was
murdered as he was going home in a cycle rickshaw.
He was succeded as leader of the group by
Vangaveeti Radha, brother of Ranga. Radha was a
small time operator, working in the bus stand, to
contact passengers travelling by bus from Vijayawada
to Hyderabad, persuade them to travel by taxi, and
collect one rupee as commission per passenger from
taxi owners. He became more powerful, as he started
settling civil disputes for a price, and enforcing his
decisions by force if one of the two parties failed to
comply.
307
As Radha became a force to reckon with in
Vijayawada, a rival faction came up with Deveneni
Gandhi as leader. Radha was a kapu and Gandhi
was a Kamma, and the conflict acquired a caste
angle. Radha was murdered by the rival faction, and
Ranga set up a “Radha friendship association” and
assumed the leadership. They targetted Devineni
Gandhi, who started a students association, winning
student elections in local colleges, from whom he
recruited people for his faction. Devineni Gandhi was
killed in 1980 by the Ranga group. Naturally,
Devenini Nehru, his brother, assumed the leadership.
The two factions were so powerful they started

having political ambitions. In 1980, Ranga became a
Congress Corporator in Vijayawada, while Devineni
Nehru joined the Telugu Desam as soon as it was
established in 1982, and the following year, he
became a Telugu Desam MLA at Vijayawada. In
1985, Ranga also became an MLA. In March, 1988,
the Ranga group struck, and killed Nehru’s youngest
brother, Murali, and five of his bodyguards, as he
was coming to Vijayawada in a convoy of three vans
308
after appearing for an examination at Nellore.

Vijayawada was placed under curfew for two days.
Ranga, who was the prime accused in the case, went
underground for 45 days and later surrendered to the
Court. In December, 1988, the position was that it
was the turn of Nehru’s group to strike.
On December 22, Vangaveeti Ranga went on a fast in

front of his house in Vijayawada, alleging that the
Police were planning to bump him off, and seeking
protection. On 25th, he drafted a letter to Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi, asking him to provide
security and direct the State Government also to do
so. At about 4.30 am, on December 26, two private
buses came by and 40 persons descended from the
buses, bursting smoke bombs, and killing Ranga. A
19 year old student, G.Narasimha Dikshit, who was
sleeping on the platform along with Ranga, was also
killed as the assailants mistook him for Ranga.
It came to light four years later, that the assailants

were Boyas from Kurnool district, a group of hired
killers, who confessed to the murder while they were
309
caught in another case of murder and were
prosecuted in a court in Kurnool. They were not
asked who paid for the murder of Ranga, and so the
truth has remained officially a secret till now.
The news of Ranga’s murder spread fast in the

coastal districts. A group of Ranga’s supporters first
axed to death Dr Uppalapati Srihari, a TDP leader,
and set his house on fire. Cinema theatres owned by
Kammas were set on fire as mobs used petrol tins to
set fire to cinema halls such as Kalyana
Chakravarthi, belonging to NTR’s brother, Alankar,
Durga Kalavahini, Apsara and Jaihind, and two film
distribution offices Vijaya and Suresh.
NTR, who effectively controlled the communal

violence in the old City of Hyderabad, virtually failed
in tackling the Vijayawada murder and the
retaliation that followed. He received bad advice
both from the Police and from his Party, and behaved
like a leader who had become tired and old, having
no sense of direction. When Ranga sat on a hunger
strike on an open road, he became a sitting duck,
310
and either NTR’s Government could have arrested

him and shifted him to a hospital or Jail, or NTR
could have restrained the rival faction, which was in
Telugu Desam, from taking any action to settle their
old scores. He did neither.
The Congress (I) organised a state wide bandh, and

demanded CBI enquiry into the murder, saying they
had no faith in the judicial enquiry the Government
ordered, on the ground “an accused cannot be the
judge”. The Government imposed curfew in
Vijayawada, but hundreds of people roamed about
the town without encountering any Police constable,
setting fire to shops they suspected belonged to the
Kammas or Telugu Desamd activists.
The then Union Minister, P.Shivshankar, went in a

procession to the Hospital mortuary to bring the
body of Ranga to the Congress (I) Party office where
it was kept for people to pay their respects. The
funeral was attended by the observers from All India
Congress Committee, including Ms Shiela Dixit,
Ms Mohsina Kidwai, Jagannath Pahadia, Gulam
311
Nabi Azad and Sitaram Kesari. The then Union
Home Minister, Buta Singh, was to visit Vijayawada
for the funeral but he cancelled the visit at the last
minute, and Congressmen demanded President’s Rule
in the State. The Congress (I) Legislature Party said
that Ranga’s murder was preceded by consultations
between NTR, the Home Minister and Director
General of Police, and therefore all of them were part
of a conspiracy.
The trouble spread to several towns and villages in

five coastal districts. At Jeyapuram, a village entirely
inhabited by Kamma farmers, a group of Kapu
youth from neighbouring villages came in tractors, to
burn every house in the village and beat up the
residents.
The Opposition parties also sent a fact finding

mission to Vijayawada, and this team consisted of
L.K.Advani (BJP), Madhu Dandavate, Mufti
Mohammed Sayeed, Veerendra Varma, (all Janata
Dal) R.S.Ramoowalia (Akali Dal) and Amal Datta
(CPI M).
312
Ranga’s murder had long range of consequences,

because Kapus were completely alienated from
Telugu Desam. A Kapu Minister in NTR’s Cabinet,
Ch. Harirama Jogiah, resigned from the Cabinet and
party and went to the Congress (I) , and another
Kapu leader, Mudragada Padmanabham, followed
suit a few months later. Harirama Jogiah, a film
producer, went to the Congress, became a Minister in
K.Vijayabhaskara Reddy in 1992-94, later lost in the
1994 and 1999 elections and shifted to BJP.
Mudragada Padmanabham went on a fast in 1994,
demanding that Kapus be included in the list of
Backward Classes, and Vijayabhaskara Reddy
hurriedly appointed a retired Judge from Karnataka,
K.Puttuswami, as a Commission, hoping to get his
report recommending inclusion of Kapus within a
month. Puttuswamy however outlasted
Vijayabhaskara Reddy, and actually submitted his
reporter after 9 years! Mudragada however was
greeted with banners “No Kapus in this village” as he
went for his campaign in 1994 elections, since he
alienated all castes because of his identification with
313
Kapus, and he later went to BJP, finally returned to
Telugu Desam and became a Member of Parliament
in 1999 elections.
314
NTR as Leader of Opposition
NTR was depressed when he lost power in the 1989

November elections. He realised late that he
squandered the goodwill he enjoyed with the people
in 1983 and in 1985, through a series of mistakes.
Mistakes such as the wholesale dismissal of his
entire cabinet of 32 Ministers in January, 1989, the
way he mishandled the disturbances in the wake of
Vangaveeti Ranga’s murder in Vijayawada, and the
mistakes he did in distributing tickets to party
candidates in Nizamabad and Srikakulam districts.
NTR contested from two constituencies for the

Assembly, and he was elected comfortably from
Hindupur while he was defeated at Kalwakurthi of
Mahbubnagar district. This was a major setback for
the leader who won such a massive public mandate.
NTR took the decision to contest from Kalwakurthi
at the very last minute, as if to keep his opponents in
suspense, on the basis of a chance remark a Member
of Parliament, P.Radhakrishna, made to him, that
the lambadas of Kalwakurthi worship NTR’s picture
in the villages. Kalwakurthi was the constituency of
315
S.Jaipal Reddy for a long time, while he was in the
Congress and then in Janata, and it was a
constituency with a predominent lambada
population, but these people were covered by a Non
Governmental Organization called AWARE. This
organization opposed NTR in the 1989 election, a
fact not known to NTR at the time his decision was
made.
When Telugu Desam activists from Hyderabad

arrived at Kalwakurthi to see the trend of the
campaign, they were surprised to find that the
lambadas, who were supposed to worship NTR, were
completely indifferent to Telugu Desam. They went
back to Hyderabad and said that some drastic
measures had to be taken to ensure NTR’s win, such
as a full day’s whirlwind tour of the constituency by
NTR, and stationing a large number of party
activists at the mandal and village level to oversee the
campaign because the local unit appeared to be
indifferent. NTR did not plan to visit either
Hindupur or Kalwakurthi, but these reports forced
him to address one meeting at Kalwakurthi on the
316
last day of the campaign. But his last minute efforts

went in vain.
In the 1989 elections, the Telugu Desam and its allies

CPI and CPI (M), polled 42.15 per cent of popular
vote, while the Congress came to power on 45.39 per
cent vote. Added to this was the fact the symbol
“motor cycle” allotted to Independent candidates
caused a major havoc for Telugu Desam because of
its close resemblance to the “bicycle” symbol of TDP.
At Anakapalli for example, an Independent
candidate with the “motor cycle” symbol polled
14,205 votes while the TDP nominee lost the election
to Lok Sabha by 11,158 votes. The “motor cycle”
symbol was thereafter frozen.
NTR rued his assertion in the 1988 Vijayawada

mahanadu that “the Party came with me and it will
go with me. Those who want me to change can as
well leave the Party and go because there is no
question of my changing a bit”. He knew it was not
easy to dislodge the Congress from power a second
time, but he bid for his time, hoping that Congress
317
would commit more mistakes and become unpopular
soon.
Dr Marri Channa Reddy was President of Andhra

Pradesh Congress Committee, at that time, and he
was the natural choice for Chief Minister. He had
enormous self-confidence, following a meeting he had
with Sri Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, who
predicted his win. The Congress (I) was jubiliant
that it was coming back to power after a gap of six
years.
Dr Channa Reddy became Chief Minister on

December 3, 1989 and ruled the state for one year.
The 1989 elections saw big changes at the Centre
also, and Rajiv Gandhi lost power and V.P.Singh
became Prime Minister. Dr Channa Reddy started
undoing the things that NTR did before, and one of
his first announcements was to withdraw the rule
making wearing helmet compulsory for scooter
riders! He made the announcement at his very first
public meeting after the swearing in ceremony at the
Nizam College grounds.
318
This was Dr Channa Reddy’s second stint as Chief

Minister. In this one year, Dr Channa Reddy went to
United States and spent two months there, for a
kidney transplant, the kidney donated by his elder
son, Marri Ravinder Reddy, and a cataract surgery.
He said he was ill for four years before, and that
anyone who noticed his swollen legs could have
guessed his problem. On his return from US, Dr
Channa Reddy was asked whether administration
had suffered in his absence. He replied: “It is not
written anywhere in the Constitution that a Chief
Minister should govern the State only from within its
boundaries. I was more accessible to officials from
New York than when I was in Hyderabad. I used to
get 200 calls daily from India. I have done it well,
and the performance of the administration was
excellent”.
Dr Channna Reddy could not scrap the subsidised

rice scheme, but he knew that there could not be one
crore families below poverty line in Andhra Pradesh,
and that the cards went largely to bogus families. He
319
ordered a sample survey of the beneficiaries in East
Godavari district. The survey results proved that his
suspicions were justified, because white cards were
given to a man owning a cinema theatre, and another
owning a petrol bunk. When the survey was in
progress, there was the public apprehension that
Government was planning to weed out a large
number of cards, and a public mood was building up
against the Congress Government.
Dr Channa Reddy sought to ridicule NTR’s schemes,

such as the installation of 30 statues of eminent
Telugu personalities on the Tank Bund, linking the
twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, as
causing distraction to vehicle drivers resulting in
traffic accidents! He wondered aloud whether he
should install the statue of Budha in the
Hussainsagar lake, as NTR proposed, or shift it to
Nagarjunasagar, because vehicle drivers can bump
into each other looking at the statue!. But when the
statue brought for installation inside the lake
drowned in the waters, because a minor official
320
present misjudged the location of centre of gravity of

the boat in which the statue was carried, Dr Channa
Reddy cut short his tour to Bangalore and returned
to Hyderabad by a special flight, lest people may
think he deliberately had the statue drowned!.
The Budha statue was something dear to NTR. He

had a 800-tonne rock carved from a hill at Raigir in
Nalgonda district, which was transported to
Hyderabad, 60 kms away, in a massive trailer having
24 axles and 192 tyres. The statue had to be retrieved
from the waters, carried to its spot for installation,
and chisseled and given the final touches, much after
Dr Channa Reddy left his seat of power. Finally, the
statue weighed 350 tonnes, and stood 57.9 feet tall
and 21 feet wide. The statue was installed on a rock
inside the Hussainsagar lake and is flood lit at night
on special occassions.
Communal violence, dissidence within the Congress

(I) and Dr Channa Reddy appeared to go together,
and the biggest incidents of communal violence took
place in the old City areas in December 1990, with
321
more than 100 deaths, and for the first time since the
State’s formation, the old City was placed in the
hands of the Army. There were stabbing sprees
everywhere, and even a two year old infant was
stabbed. A Muslim constable shot dead an Assistant
Commissioner of Police, Sattiah, sitting in his jeep, at
close quarters, resulting in tension in the area. Dr
Channa Reddy went to the Osmania General
Hospital and saw the victims, and the photographs in
the press revealed their religious affiliations and
there were further repraissals.
Meanwhile, the dissidence in the Congress was

building up right from the start. One issue was the
way Ministers from Channna Reddy cabinet suddenly
abandoned Rajiv Gandhi, who was touring Andhra
Pradesh as Congress President to study flood damage
in July, 1990, and went to Delhi to receive Chief
Minister returning from US. V.Hanumantha Rao
was the only Minister to accompany Rajiv Gandhi on
all the four days he toured from July 16. At a
Congress Legislature Party meeting on July 26, 1990,
322
Dr Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy demanded action against

the four Ministers who deserted Rajiv Gandhi on the
last day of the tour. On December 9, N.Srinivasulu
Reddy, Minister for Animal Husbandry, resigned
from the Cabinet, holding the Chief Minister
personally responsible for the bloodshed in the old
City. Dr Channa Reddy’s followers alleged that the
communal violence was triggered by one group inside
the Congress (I) to force Dr Channa Reddy out, and
sure enough, on December 12, 1990, Dr Channa
Reddy resigned.
But the resignation letter was not received by the

Governor, and Rajiv Gandhi, as Congress President,
was annoyed. The Congress deputed a team of
observers, as is its practice, to chose a successor, and
these observers had to delay the visit since they
cannot look for successors without a vacancy, and Dr
Channa Reddy did not resign. Finally, they arrived
on December 15, and shortly before midnight on a
new moon day, Nedurumalli Janardhana Reddy was
elected as Leader. Dr Channa Reddy resigned at 2.30
323
am on December 16, a time fixed by astrologers for
the event, but the previous day, he filled up posts of
chairmen for 22 corporations and chairmanship of
Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, to the chagrin of
the incoming Chief Minister. Some of these
appointees were in such great hurry to take charge on
December 15, a Sunday, that they carried the file in
their cars to the Secretariat, had it personally
endorsed by the Chief Secretary, took it to the
Section for the issuance of the Government Order,
telephoned the Managing Directors of Corporations
or Executive Officer of Tirumala Tirupati
Devasthanam to be present, and assumed charge of
their offices, all within six hours flat.
Janardhana Reddy took bold, but unpopular

decisions, within one month of coming to power. He
increased the cost of subsidy rice from Rs 2 to Rs 3.50
per kg, restricted the allotment to 16 kgs per family
from 25 kgs before. His logic was that the State will
give a fixed subsidy of Rs 1.25 per kg, and increase
the cost whenever the issue price (at which Food
324
Corporation of India delivered rice to State public

distribution system) went up. In Janardhana Reddy’s
time, the food subsidy came to Rs 200 crores a year,
which amount, he said, he would use for the
development of the Assembly constituencies.
Then on May 21, 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was

assassinated at Sriperumbudur near Madras. There
was a country wide public anger at the assassination,
and NTR became the victim at the hands of
Congress (I) activists. Rajiv Gandhi was
assassinated at about 8.40 pm, by a suicide bomber
of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a fact
established by photos taken by a pro-LTTE
photographer engaged to record the event for his
organization, but somehow the camera fell into
Police hands because the LTTE operatives could not
take it away, and the truth came out. Somehow, NTR
was blamed for the assassination, and two Congress
(I) leaders who confronted NTR that night, virtually
abused NTR and menacingly advanced to him as if
to beat him. NTR was escorted to a safe place, but
325
that night, two Congress (I) MLAs came with 20
people in two jeeps and set fire to Ramakrishna
theatres in Abids and Tarakarama theatre in
Kachiguda, both owned by NTR’s sons. There was
no public participation in these arson attacks, which
was meticulously planned and operated by Congress
(I) activists. An IPS Officer testified before a
Commission of Inquiry that he was astonished to see
the MLA’s men walking in with petrol cans, and he
ordered a Police party to do a cane charge, but was
restrained by a superior officer present there. All top
Police brass of the Hyderabad City Commissionerate
were present as the theatres were burnt, as if they
were directed to supervise the event.
One of the MLAs named in the attack on

Ramakrishna theatres was P.Sudhir Kumar, son of
the one time Union Minister, P.Shivshankar. Sudhir
Kumar was abducted by the Peoples War Group of
naxalites later on, and he was set free after the
Government of N.Janardhana Reddy released three
top leaders of the PWG including Nimmaluri
326
Bhaskara Rao, member of Andhra Provincial

Committee. Sudhir Kumar subsequently became very
ill and was in hospital for more than a month. NTR
when he went to the Hospital to persuade a Telugu
Desam activist to call off her fast, called on Sudhir
Kumar and wished him speedy recovery. Sudhir
Kumar came out of the illness, but died a year later.
In the wake of Rajiv Gandhi assassination,

Congressmen settled scores with their Telugu Desam
opponents in Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam districts,
attacking houses and shops of Telugu Desam leaders.
Three weeks later, the Police issued a statement
saying that 1,513 cases of attack were registered and
4,836 people were arrested in the outbreak of violence
on May 21, but none were held in custody a week
later. Police said that damage in 300 cases was less
than Rs 5,000 and in only 16 cases, it was more than
Rs 5 lakhs.
Elections to Parliament were held in two phases, and

in the elections held for 17 seats on May 20, 1991 the
Telugu Desam and its allies CPI and CPI (M) won 12
327
seats with 41.87 per cent of votes and the Congress (I)
won three seats with 39.56 per cent vote. Rajiv
Gandhi’s assassination postponed the second phase
to June 15, in which the sympathy factor prevailed
and Congress (I) obtained 21 seats, while Telugu
Desam got three seats. The results were clearly a
setback for Congress (I), and it was obvious that, but
for the assassination, the Congress (I) in power in
Andhra Pradesh, would have been trounced in the
Parliamentary elections.
The National Front came to power at Centre, and

V.P.Singh became Prime Minister. Through a clever
move, P.Upendra, who was one of the three general
secretaries of National Front along with Murasoli
Maran and a representative of Assom Gana
Parishad, got themselves inducted into the Union
Cabinet without NTR’s nod, as if it was a settled
matter between V.P.Singh and themselves. NTR went
to Delhi for a formal meeting as Chairman of
National Front, when V.P.Singh was installed as
Prime Minister, but NTR returned to Hyderabad the
328
same day. He was however nursing his hurt at the

incidents of arson and attacks on his family and on
Telugu Desam activists. He travelled to villages in
Prakasam and Guntur districts to console victims of
the attacks, and to tell them that they were not alone
in their hour of grief. NTR wanted to do something
dramatic to focus on the role of Congress (I) MLAs
and activists in these incidents.
On May 30, 1991, NTR sat in a hunger strike on the

Tank Bund, near the statue of Potuluri
Veerabrahmam, demanding a judicial enquiry into
the incidents, arrest of Congressmen involved in the
incidents, and compensation to victims of the arson.
NTR observed also a “mouna vratham” (vow of
silence), and communicated with people through slips
of paper on which he wrote messages in Telugu.
Hundreds of people stood in queues to greet him
from early morning to late in the night, and NTR
gave women “kumkum bharina” (the small vessel in
which women offer turmeric and kumkum).
NTR named P.Sudhir Kumar and M.Mukesh,
329
Congress MLAs from Hyderabad City, Vijayasimha
Reddy, and R.Damodar Reddy, Congress MLAs from
Nalgonda district as being responsible for the
attacks.
NTR’s fast became a problem for Janardhana

Reddy’s Government, but the Chief Minister allowed
NTR time to decide for himself how he will end the
fast. But NTR became adament. He was a diabetic,
and a diabetic refraining from food has the chance of
lapsing into a coma, and so his family became
anxious that somehow NTR should be forcefully fed.
NTR was determined to continue his fast till the
Chief Minister conceded his demands, while his
family was equally determined to see that the fast
was broken, forcibly if necessary, in order to preserve
his health. Janardhana Reddy thought that NTR’s
fast will slowly lose public interest and go out of the
front pages of newspapers, but public interest
continued to intensify and NTR’s fast and health
became the talking points in the State. As the crowds
began to grow on the Tankbund, the Government
330
decided to shift NTR from there. Two hours after

midnight on June 2, Police cordoned off the entire
stretch of Tankbund, with a big Police force, and
arrested NTR and removed him to the Nizams
Institute of Medical Sciences.
NTR was determined to continue his hungerstrike

inside the Hospital, and NTR’s sons and daughters
came one by one to see him. NTR said he will give
up the fast if the Government ordered an enquiry and
sanctioned compensation to the victims, but
Government was not willing to concede the demands.
Government maintained that they did not arrest
NTR and Doctors at the NIMS said they cannot
administer saline to NTR unless he was arrested, but
Janardhana Reddy’s Government was vacillating .
NTR was actually arrested on the night of June 2,
and therefore the NIMS Hospital premises was
ringed with Police units as if to prevent NTR from
running away. But the Government was unwilling to
tell the Doctors attending on NTR that he was under
arrest.
331
Janardhana Reddy made an attempt to resolve the
deadlock, by inviting Leaders of Opposition parties
to come to his house for a discussion. The Leaders of
Communist Parties and others went to the CM’s
residence, which was just one kilometre from the
NIMS, from the Raj Bhavan Road side, but Police
did not permit them to walk into the House, saying
they should come from the Swapna Nursing Home
side gate, which was one kilometre away through a
roundabout route, and they had to travel by cars.
The leaders wanted the Security to consult their Chief
Minister, but Janardhana Reddy had gone to attend
a marriage and was expected to return in 15 minutes.
The Opposition leaders saw no point in waiting, it
became a matter of prestige for them as they had
come by walk, and they returned to the NIMS to
report failure of their mission to NTR.
At this stage, Chandrababu Naidu, as NTR’s son-in-

law and General Secretary of Telugu Desam,
telephoned P.Upendra who was Union Minister for
Information in V.P.Singh Government, and urged him
332
to have the Centre to respond to NTR’s demands in

some way or other. Upendra reportedly rebuffed
Chandrababu, saying that the “old man should be
asked to give up his fast first, there is nothing else
anybody could do now”. Upendra’s response hurt
Telugu Desam activists, but times had changed, and
NTR was in Opposition while Upendra was in power.
Then suddenly in the morning, the Police was

withdrawn from NIMS, and Doctors were informed
that NTR was never under arrest. He was kept in
the Intensive Care Unit of NIMS for two days, but
NTR briskly walked out of the Hospital, called for
his Chaitanya Ratham, and addressed small crowds
from his vehicle criticising the Government for
encouraging to attacks on Telugu Desam activists.
NTR’s brisk walk and his ride on Chaitanya
Ratham demonstrated that he had the requisite
strength which he frequently proclaimed through his
“notes” that were read out to the press, while
observing silence.
The Government said that NTR was taken to the
333
NIMS only on the advice of the expert team
attending on him. “The team included two doctors
chosen by Sri Rama Rao himself. Even at the
Hospital, when Sri Rama Rao refused to take
medical treatment, no attempt was made to force
feed him. It was only when the doctors attending on
Sri Rama Rao requested Police to obtain orders from
the Magistrate to force feed him, the Police filed a
petition and took orders. The doctors carried out the
orders of the Magistrate, and gave Sri Rama Rao
fluids intraveneously at 8.40 am”. He scored a
political point by going to the people and putting
Congress men on the dock, but Janardhana Reddy
did not concede any demand and held his ground.
NTR made a mistake, as he publicly acknowledged

later, of helping P.V.Narasimha Rao to get elected to
Lok Sabha from Nandyal constituency without a
Telugu Desam candidate in the field. PV became
Prime Minister after the 1991 elections, though he
did not contest for Parliament, as Rajiv Gandhi was
assassinated and Congress power equations were in a
334
flux in Delhi. After the Cabinet installation, NTR

met P.V. twice in Delhi, and said since P.V was a
“Telugu bidda” (a Telugu child), the first Prime
Minister from the South, it was necessary to help him
to win the election without contest, and therefore
Telugu Desam would not field a candidate against
him. The BJP however fielded its future National
President, Bangaru Lakshman, against P.V.
K.Vijayabhaskara Reddy, who was Union Minister,
wanted PV’s margin of victory to be so big that it
would enter the Guinness Book of Records, but he
was later told that the biggest margin was some one
crore votes polled by a Deputy in the elections to the
Soviet Parliament during the Communist regime.
Though polling was very dull at Nandyal, and voters
were conspicuous by their absence, PV won the
election by a huge margin of five lakh votes, polling
just short of 90 per cent of votes cast, and Bangaru
Lakshman, as expected, lost his deposit. He did not
poll 90 per cent, because under the rules then in force,
there would have been a need for a re-election if any
candidate polled more than 90 per cent of votes cast.
335
Telugu Desam however won the by-election to the
Assembly from Allagadda, which was simulteneously
held, and which was part of Nandyal Lok Sabha
seat.
In NTR’s words, PV repaid his debt of gratitude by

splitting the Telugu Desam Parliamentary Party.
There were 13 Members of Lok Sabha belonging to
Telugu Desam, and it became necessary for PV’s
survival to entice some of them. In 1992, the BJP
moved an amendment to a Government resolution
and pressed for division in Lok Sabha, and
inexplicably, 9 Telugu Desam MPs out of 13
abstained from voting, sending a jolt to NTR, but
helping P.V. to tide over the crisis. Dr Daggubati
Venkateswara Rao, NTR’s elder son-in-law and an
MP, returned from Delhi one evening, to realise that
eight MPs were actually in the Lok Sabha Speaker’s
chamber, ready to give a letter announcing a split in
the Telugu Desam Parliamentary Party. The efforts
of Dr Venkateswara Rao and N.Chandrababu Naidu
to contact their MPs were in vain.
336
Actually six MPs finally announced that they formed

a group, and were expelled by NTR from Telugu
Desam. This splinter group was headed by
B.Vijayakumar Raju of Narsapur in West Godavari
district, who owned a paper mill, P.Ganga Reddy, an
arrack contractor of Nizamabad, A.Indrakaran
Reddy of Adilabad, who subsequently became a
Congress MLA, K.P.Reddiah of Krishna district,
K.V.R.Chowdhary of Rajahmundry and Thota
Ramaswamy of Kakinada. Two other MPs, B.Bulli
Ramiah of Eluru and Ganti Mohana Chandra
Balayogi of Amalapuram (who later became Speaker
of Lok Sabha and died in an air crash) retracted from
their letter, but the Speaker, Shivraj Patil, threatened
to disqualify them for defecting from a group of
defectors, without constituting one third of the group
of defectors. M.V.V.S.Murthy of Visakhapatnam
was also part of the group that originally planned to
split, but he later retraced his steps.
These 6 MPs said that they had split the Party in

order to save Telugu Desam from falling into the
337
machinations of NTR’s two sons-in-law, but it came
to light much later, in the court case concerning the
Jarkand Mukti Morcha MPs bribery case, that an
industrialist of Delhi, an arrack contractor of
Bangalore, among others, gave Rs one crore to each
of 15 MPs of various smaller parties to support P.V.’s
Government, and the 6 MPs from Telugu Desam were
part of this group. Those days, P.V was praised for
being an “apara chanakya” when he easily converted
his minority into a majority, but when the truth came
out, his term was dismissed as being remarkable only
for “bribery and forgery”. PV was convicted in the
JMM bribery case to three years in jail, but he
obtained a stay from the High Court. The forgery
referred to the St Kitts Island bank account case of
V.P.Singh’s son, in which PV allegedly asked a
consular official in United States to authenticate a
forged document.
NTR became suspicious about his own MLAs in

another controversy that rocked Janardhana Reddy’s
Government during April 1991. This related to the
338
approval of tenders at 67 per cent excess cost for a

World Bank aided project of digging irrigation
canals under Sriramsagar project and Srisailam
Right Branch canal schemes. Telugu Desam
demanded that the excess tenders be cancelled, and
Janardhana Reddy agreed to do so at first, but later
said Government had no power to cancel and sent the
files to the World Bank.
It all started with the State Government signing an

agreement on May 28, 1986 for a loan of Rs 315
crores for Srisailam Right Branch canal and Rs 293
crores for Sriramsagar sub-Project. The credit and
loan were effective October 2, 1987 and the project
was to be completed by December, 1993. According
to agreement, 57 per cent of works had to be given
under International Competitive Bidding, in which
there is pre-qualification of tenders, to ensure that
invitation to bid is given to only those capable of
executing the works. When tenders were called for,
the Government introduced a new rule, and used the
modified rule to disqualify big firms like Larson &
339
Toubro, Dodsal and National Projects Construction
Company, because “they did not perform similar
work under similar conditions and similar type”
during the past six years. The amended rule enabled
only five out of 45 applicants to be qualified for
bidding. These five contractors formed into a group
and bid Rs 200 crores for works that were estimated
to have required only Rs 120 crores. Telugu Desam
MLAs said that when Telugu Desam Government
adopted the same procedure, they got contractors
bidding 20 per cent less than Government estimates.
The issue led to a furore in the Assembly debate, and

dominated public discussion for a week, but the issue
was not raised again in the Assembly or on a
political forum. NTR heard that some Telugu
Desam MLAs were also given some amounts so that
the issue does not figure again, and NTR was
anguished at this course of events and spent time
enquiring from his visitors so that he could get at the
truth.
Janardhana Reddy was not allowed to settle down in
340
office, because of the dissidence in the Party. A

group six Ministers openly defied him and wanted
change of leadership. Then one day, Janardhana
Reddy gave, at one go, permission to start a dozen
private medical and dental colleges in the State. One
of the applicants from Nellore district was a College
management, in which the Chief Minister’s wife and
brother figured as promotors, but Janardhana Reddy
denied knowledge of this college, and asserted that
he was not personally interested in any applicants.
This fact was commented upon by the High Court
and Janardhana Reddy was asked to resign. Kotla
Vijayabhaskara Reddy became the third Congress
Chief Minister to take over, in October, 1993.
Vijayabhaskara Reddy was a senior Congress leader,

who was the Chairman of Kurnool Zilla Parishad in
1960s. He was reputed to have been able to call
atleast ten people by name in every village of
Kurnool district. Vijaybhaskara Reddy had come a
long way from then on, and in September 1992,
Vijayabhaskara Reddy was a Member of Parliament
341
when he was made Chief Minister of Andhra
Pradesh. He had to become an MLA within six
months, and so the Panyam seat in Kurnool district
was vacated by a Congress MLA, and the Chief
Minister contested from there in a by-election.
NTR had a new experience while campaigning in the

constituency. Panyam was a small constituency
consisting of a Banganapalli zamindari, famous for
its mangoes, and a place where slabs for flooring are
available, Bethamcherla. But Telugu Desam
candidates and workers found it extraordinarily
difficult to get a room for rent, or a house for
locating Telugu Desam office. A tent on the
pavement outside the State Guest House at
Banganapalli was the election office of Telugu
Desam candidate, Renuka Chowdhary, contesting
against Vijayabhaskara Reddy. The Chief Minister’s
cutouts, banners and buntings were there everywhere
in the constituency, and the NTR cutouts or banners
were conspicuous by their absence.
At Veldurthy, a Telugu Desam worker said that the
342
party was prevented from drawing water from a well,

and the food had to be obtained from outside the
town by tiffin carriers. Congress leaders however
enjoyed Government hospitality in the Guest Houses
in the constituencies where liveried servants served
food. NTR drew big crowds in his campaign in the
constituency, and he stayed at the Panyam Cements
guest house. Referring to this, Vijayabhaskara Reddy
said in a campaign speech that he can “throw out the
proprietors” out of Panyam for giving hospitality to
NTR!. Vijayabhaskara Reddy easily won the by-
election.
Then on August 7, 1993, a Telugu Desam MLA and

former Minister, Perugu Siva Reddy, was murdered at
the Sathya Sai kalyana mandapam in Srinagar
Colony of Hyderabad, as he attended a marriage.
His rivals threw bombs at him and killed him
instantly. NTR arrived on the scene, took the body
and went to Raj Bhavan, asking the Governor,
Krishan Kant, to do him justice. This was an
extraordinary demonstration, and the Governor did
343
not know how to handle the case. He tried to
persuade NTR to take the body out of Raj Bhavan,
and mount a political battle elsewhere. After
brooding over the matter for an hour, NTR agreed.
The issue dominated the Assembly session, but Chief

Minister Vijayabhaskara Reddy rejected a demand
for a judicial enquiry, on the ground it would take lot
of time, while the Police will be doing a “good and
effective job”. On August 13, NTR demanded that
the Chief Minister talk about the statement of a
Union Minister in PV’s Cabinet, Rajesh Pilot,
offering a CBI enquiry into the murder.
Vijayabhaskara Reddy wondered how could a Union
Minister order an enquiry without his knowledge.
At the end of an acrimonious debate, all the 70

Telugu Desam MLAs were suspended from the
Assembly for their “disorderly behaviour”, and about
100 Marshalls entered the House to physically
remove each one of them. It was on that day that
NTR announced that he would never enter the
Assembly as long as the Congress (I) was in power.
344
He kept his word, entering the House again as Chief

Minister in January, 1995.
345
Lakshmi Parvathi and NTR’s
Second Political Crisis
NTR was able to successfully overcome his first
political crisis, by mobilising public opinion in his
favour and having the support of national leaders of
Opposition Parties, because it was a political coup
staged with Congress (I) support. However, he
became a victim of the second political crisis, in
which the people had no role to play. NTR was
embroiled in a struggle for power between Nara
Chandrababu Naidu, his son-in-law, and Lakshmi
Parvathi, whom he married in his 70th year. NTR
was defeated by his own family, consisting of his
seven sons, four daughters, and two sons-in-law, who
were able to mobilise Telugu Desam MLAs on the
slogan of “helping NTR distance himself from
Lakshmi Parvathi”. NTR stood alone, isolated in his
house, misled by senior officials whom he trusted,
that the revolt was only against Lakshmi Parvathi
and not against himself.
NTR saw the crisis coming, but he was blinded by his

own soft corner for his sons and daughters who, he
thought, would never attempt to stab him in the
346
back. If only he stood firm the MLAs would fall in

line, he thought. He had no contingency plans in
case the MLAs rose in revolt against his leadership,
and when the actual revolt materialised, NTR was
caught completely off guard and he made clumsy
attempts to retain his power. He was easily
outmaneuvered by Chandrababu Naidu, with the
support of all the Opposition parties in the State.
Ummareddi Venkateswarlu, the Telugu Desam

Member of Parliament, in his book: “Chandrababu
Naidu – in pursuit of excellence” - explains how the
MLAs became bold and impatient, during August
1995, as NTR remained stubborn in his support to
Lakshmi Parvathi, and not amenable to logic. “The
MLAs readied themselves for a direct fight with
Lakshmi Parvathi. Even as the stage was being set for
an all out war, there were attempts by NTR to make
Lakshmi Parvathi a Deputy Chief Minister. This,
inspite of the fact that she was not even an MLA.
September 9th was the muhurtham for this ceremony.”
Reports such as these provoked MLAs loyal to NTR
347
to shift sides because they did not like to see Lakshmi
Parvathi become Deputy Chief Minister. For these
MLAs the fight against NTR was just the next step.
NTR’s second political crisis was the result of a

power struggle that developed between
Chandrababu and Lakshmi Parvathi in NTR’s
household in which Lakshmi Parvathi appeared to be
winning, and so Chandrababu’s followers changed
the target of the attack, sidestepped Lakshmi
Parvathi and went all out to replace NTR himself. It
is a matter of conjecture that if Lakshmi Parvathi
was content to have been a mere housewife, without
political ambition, then NTR might have continued
as Chief Minsiter till his death, with Chandrababu
playing a vital role in the Telugu Desam Party and in
the Government.
A number of factors caused the serious political crisis

for NTR. Chandrababu was not a Minister in
NTR’s Government from 1983 to 89, but he was
General Secretary of Telugu Desam, a close confident
of NTR, and regarded himself as a balancing factor
348
in preventing NTR from taking erratic decisions on

impulse. Chandrababu was the family’s choice of a
successor to NTR. NTR’s temperamental behaviour
and his autocratic approach to party and
Government have been attracting the attention of the
people now and then in the past. NTR said, at a
Mahanadu of the Telugu Desam in Viyayawada in
May, 1988: “Those that want me to change can as
well leave the Party. I will never, never change. This
Party has come with me, and it will go with me”. It
was difficult to reconcile this statement of NTR with
what he said earlier at the same meeting, that he
would respect the party rank and file and take them
along with him. NTR generally compared himself
with M.G.Ramachandran, and he saw how MGR
was able to act on impulse and get away with it,
without anyone in the Party challenging him, but
NTR’s following in Andhra Pradesh was not as
militant as MGR’s in Tamilnadu. NTR felt that he
alone represented the people’s mandate because
people voted for NTR, just as people did for Indira
Gandhi or M.G.Ramachandran.
349
In 1989 he made the mistake of combining both
Assembly and Parliament elections together, and lost
power by a margin of two per cent votes. He
inexplicably changed candidates at the very last
minute in Nizamabad and Srikakulam districts, and
the candidates so replaced contested as Independents
and won, thus damaging NTR’s chances of retaining
power. Candidates to whom he gave “B” forms, that
entitled them to get the TDP symbol in the elections,
were replaced the next morning, as the candidates
were on their way to file nominations on the last day.
The situation by 1990 was that the powerful Eenadu

Editor, Ramoji Rao, felt that NTR was incapable of
administering the State because of his erratic
decisions and emotional outbursts. And Eenadu
editorially advised NTR on May 16, 1991 to step
down from Party presidentship, hand over power to a
younger group in the Party, and quit. In an editorial
titled: “The brother’s self-criticism”, Eenadu said
“one has to suspect the bonafides of any statement
by NTR that he would correct his mistakes and
350
change his style of functioning, because both are

beyond his capacity. NTR fails because he introduces
histroinics into his political agenda. The eight years
from 1982 has shown that even the mighty gods
could not transform the Party. If NTR retires from
politics, it would be good for the Party, for NTR
himself and for Andhra Pradesh”, Eenadu had said.
The first rebellion against NTR came from Renuka

Chowdhary, then a Telugu Desam MP, and President
of Hyderabad district TDP. When an enquiry
committee met her at the instance of NTR, in 1992,
she asked them: “Who is that fellow to enquire
against me?”. At that time, Chandrababu adopted
an ambivalent attitude, but NTR said an insult
against the leader was an insult against the entire
Party, and expelled her from the Party. She later
joined Congress (I) and won the Khammam seat in
Lok Sabha on Congress (I) ticket in 1999.
NTR was a loner, and had very few friends. His

sons and daughers came to him when they wanted to
tell him something about their financial or family
351
problems, and left after their conversation was over,
just like any other visitors. Once as Leader of
Opposition, NTR attended his grand daughter’s
marriage at a hall in Secunderabad, and he sat
alone, talking to the press, as the family apparently
ignored him, though he did not bring Lakshmi
Parvathi for the marriage. One did not see him
playing with his grandchildren, or having a family
get together. He had however immense attachment
to his sons and daughters, to each of whom he built
palatial houses and gifted them enough money to live
a life of leisure. But he would not display his
affection. None of his sons inherited his spark. Once
in 1988, NTR announced that his actor son,
Balakrishna, would be his political heir, but there
was so much criticism from the Congress (I), and so
much underground support for such criticism within
Telugu Desam, orchestrated by Chandrababu, that
NTR was forced not to persue that objective.
During his first political crisis during August –

September 1984, NTR’s wife, Basavatarakam, died
352
of cancer, and he went to Madras for the funeral and

returned the next day. From then on, NTR lived the
life of an ascetic, but he was yearning for some
demonstrative affection from his numerous family
which was not forthcoming.
Lakshmi Parvathi came from a poor Kamma family

near Tenali in Guntur district, having studied upto
SSC, while her mother was worried about the burden
of marrying her off. A Harikatha exponent,
Veeragandham Subba Rao, was an occassional
visitor to the house. He was a widower, 25 years
elder to Lakshmi Parvathi, and he offered to marry
her, educate her, and provide for her. The mother
consented for the marriage, and Lakshmi Parvathi
married Subba Rao and begot a son.
In 1985, Subba Rao and Lakshmi Parvathi, both

admirers of NTR, came to Hyderabad and met the
Chief Minister. As usual with such admirers,
Lakshmi Parvathi touched NTR’s feet, and said they
were silent workers for Telugu Desam and would
carry out any order NTR might give them for the
353
Party. They met NTR in Delhi again a year later.
Travelling with her Harikatha exponent husband,
Lakshmi Parvathi picked up knowledge of the
puranas and itihasas, and completed M.A degree in
Telugu literature through distance education. She
enrolled for an M.Phil degree in Telugu University,
and got a job as a College Lecturer at
Narasaraopet. Every time she came to the University
in Hyderabad, she used to call on NTR, and after
NTR’s defeat in 1989 elections, she got better access
as he was free, and one day offered to write NTR’s
biography if he agreed to give her interviews.
NTR was fascinated by her, and he liked the way she

interpreted stories from mythology with a modern
perspective, explained the meaning of slokas, and
discussed the characters of Rama and Krishna, as
interpreted in various languages and cultures of
South Asia. Having played the roles of all
mythological heroes, NTR had some basic
knowledge and he liked the way she argued with him.
After Basavatarakam’s death, NTR created a trust in
354
her name, and built an Indo-American

Basavatarakam Cancer Hospital in Hyderabad with
donations from a women’s group of Non Resident
Indians in the United States. As part of the Trust, he
had an office in Hyderabad, and NTR made
Lakshmi Parvathi resign as Lecturer and join the
trust, so that she can stay in the Trust office in Road
No 13, Banjara Hills, just opposite his own house in
Hyderabad.
NTR was a diabetic, and had undergone a heart

bypass surgery performed by the famous surgeon,
Denton Cooly in 1984 US. He suffered a stroke in
1993. At that time, Lakshmi Parvathi was with him,
and she took him to Nizams Institute of Medical
Sciences and admitted him there. She nursed him
through the illness. NTR’s daughters were upset that
it was Lakshmi Parvathi who admitted NTR in the
Hospital, not any of them. The sons and daughters
thought that Lakshmi Parvathi was a clever woman
trying to entice NTR in order to get a major share of
his property, and that her love and affection was part
355
of a drama, and that what she was interested in was
just money. They thought that if they put sufficient
pressure on NTR, he would give up the woman. But
NTR was grateful to her for what she did to him in
his illness, and refused to entertain any idea of
leaving her. His sons -in -law talked to him about
the political implications of a leader of the stature of
NTR living with a married woman openly, and about
this prospect being exploited by the Congress (I) to
the detriment of Telugu Desam’s return to power in
the 1994 general elections.
Lakshmi Parvathi was never accepted by NTR’s

family, then or now. But she was very keen to have a
child from NTR, and she underwent a recanalisation
operation in order to be able to beget a child, since
they were living together as man and wife. The
recanalisation was done at a Government maternity
hospital in Hyderabad, and not in a privated nursing
home. Dr Mahalakshmma was Superintendent of
that Hospital at that time, and this was done much
before NTR married Lakshmi Parvathi. NTR
356
started to use steroids to fulfil her desire, which

harmed his health.
NTR decided that it was better to marry Lakshmi

Parvathi and face the consequences, rather than live
together in a house, giving rise to rumours. He
decided that he would do so in public, at the 100th day
celebrations of his last successful film, Major
Chandrakanth, at Tirupati on September 11, 1993.
The film was produced by another film star, Mohan
Babu, who organised the big event, and he brought
Lakshmi Parvathi to the venue as the function was in
progress. When NTR was invited to speak, he looked
at the big audience, and shouted at Lakshmi
Parvathi: “Lakshmi, come on to the dias”. When she
was getting on to the dias, Chandrababu Naidu left
the dias, as he knew what NTR was going to do next
and did not want to be a witness. As NTR was
announcing that he was going to marry Lakshmi
Parvathi, the mike system went dead, but anyway, in
the confusion, NTR tied the mangala sutram around
Lakshmi Parvathi’s neck and thus they became man
357
and wife in full public view. This became the lead
story in the Telugu press.
The news was taken in good stride by the people in

general, and an anticipated controversy at a 70- year
old widower marrying a 30 year old divorcee did not
come about. For one, NTR was in the Opposition,
and people thought this a marriage of convenience,
in which an elderly leader at the end of his career
wanted someone to look after him, and generally the
public blamed NTR’s 11 children for allowing him to
live alone when he needed to be looked after.
In 1994, NTR took Lakshmi Parvathi along with him

in all his tours, and she actually became a hit in the
major public rallies, called “Praja Garjana” (the roar
of people), NTR organised at Rajahmundry, Kurnool
and Hyderabad before the general elections. She
travelled with him in his Chaitanya Ratham
throughout the length and breadth of the State in a
gruelling campaign trail. NTR won a landslide
victory, winning 220 seats for Telugu Desam and
helping the CPI and CPI (M) to win 34 seats together,
358
(the largest number they ever won in AP) while the

Congress(I) was left with 29 seats in the Assembly.
NTR was sworn in as Chief Minister for the third
time on 12 December 1994 at a huge rally in Lal
Bahadur stadium.
In NTR’s dispensation, Chandrababu Naidu played

a key role in distribution of party tickets, and had a
number of MLAs loyal to him. With the advent of
Lakshmi Parvathi, there was a perceptible change, as
she also played a role in distribution of party tickets,
and had her own group of loyalists. She made
choices for candidates to contest the Municipal and
Cooperative society elections, and these choices
prevailed because of her access with NTR.
Party leaders routinely met Lakshmi Parvathi before

meeting NTR, and Chandrababu’s influence in the
Party and Government started to diminish. At a
function to honour Lakshmi Parvathi, organised by a
womens organization, NTR said, in the presence of
Jayalalitha, who came as Chief Guest, that he wished
to see Lakshmi Parvathi as a people’s representative.
359
NTR won from two constituencies, Hindupur and
Tekkali, and NTR resigned from Tekkali, and so a
by-election was due there on May 27. Lakshmi
Parvathi was keen to contest.
NTR’s family sensed danger in Lakshmi Parvathi

becoming an MLA, because she would then want to
become a Minister, and ultimately usurp NTR’s
legacy. So, NTR’s son, Harikrishna, who drove
NTR’s Chaitanya Ratham in all campaigns from
1982 onwards, demanded that he should be
considered for the Tekkali seat. NTR did not
anticipate such a demand from Harikrishna, but he
understood the implication, and deferred the idea of
making Lakshmi Parvathi an MLA. But the growing
influence of Lakshmi Parvathi in the Government,
and her daily visits to the Secretariat with a lunch
basket for NTR, made NTR’s family become more
and more suspicious. They always considered her an
usurper but did not understand what made NTR
fawn on her.
Chandrababu started to sound each MLA whom he
360
trusted about Lakshmi Parvathi’s role. At that time,

there was no talk of rebelling against NTR. When
Chandrababu Naidu was confident he had the
support of a sizeable number, he acted in June, six
months after TDP came to power. Elections to 5,000
primary agricultural cooperative societies were
conducted in May, and in the subsequent elections,
the Presidents of these PACs elected 10 to 12 Directors
of District Cooperative Central Banks, who among
themselves would elect the Presidents of DCCBs. The
TDP was in a position to win all DCCBs, but in
Karimnagar, Adilabad and Cuddapah districts, the
official nominees, handpicked by Lakshmi Parvathi,
were defeated and dissident TDP men were elected,
because of large scale absence of TDP Directors.
This was the beginning of the crisis. NTR warned

two Ministers, Kadiam Srihari and G.Nagesh, and
suspended 8 MLAs for defying the party whip. These
MLAs were close to Chandrababu, and had acted
under Chandrababu’s instructions.
Then on August 20, 1995, NTR addressed a rally in
361
Parvatipuram, and was walking to the helicopter,
when a youth, sitting in the VIP enclosure, caught
hold of his feet as if by way of showing respect, but
NTR tripped and fell. NTR regarded the incident as
a bad omen, and he was profusely bleeding from the
nose, as the steel frame of his glasses pierced through
the nose. Lakshmi Parvathi was a few steps behind,
while a doctor applied bandage and stopped the
bleeding.
Chandrababu displayed an open defiance of the

leader, when he put up a show of strength while he
travelled in a convoy of about 40 cars in
Visakhapatnam with big fanfare, quite unusual for a
Minister, while NTR was in town. At
Visakhapatnam, Chandrababu wanted to confront
NTR along with a number of Ministers and MLAs,
and complain against Lakshmi Parvathi. But this
was abandoned, and instead a delegation consisting
T.Devender Goud, Minister and S.V.Subba Reddy,
Kurnool MLA, were sent to talk to NTR. NTR
abused them for daring to tell him to separate from
362
his legally wedded wife. On August 23,

Chandrababu put up another show of defiance at
the Secretariat in Hyderabad, when he met a stream
of TDP MLAs in his chambers, signing a
memorandum to NTR, demanding revocation of
suspension of 8 MLAs. Chandrababu anticipated
that NTR would try to reach these MLAs, and so he
shifted all these MLAs to the Viceroy Hotel on the
Lower Tank Bund, owned by P.Prabhakara Reddy,
who was the brother-in-law of B.Gopalakrishna
Reddy, an MLA from Chittoor district and a close
friend of Chandrababu. Prabhakara Reddy was the
son of the Janata MP, P.Babul Reddy, and later on he
became a Telugu Desam MP, and a Treasurer of the
Party.
The theme on which MLAs rallied behind

Chandrababu was that Lakshmi Parvathi had
created a situation in which NTR was no longer able
to act according to his judgment, that she was an
ambitious woman who wants to be declared as
NTR’s political heir, keeping away from him all
363
those who worked closely with him since 1983. The
MLAs saw that all the sons, sons-in-law and
daughters supported Chandrababu’s coup, and they
thought this was in the best interests of the Party.
As Ummareddy Venkateswarlu writes, the idea was

for all the MLAs to confront NTR and stage a
dharna before his house, demanding that he should
preferably send Lakshmi Parvathi out of the house.
On August 23, a majority of MLAs were with NTR,

and NTR had the opportunity to consolidate his hold
on the Party and could have diffused the crisis by
taking preemptive action. But NTR was Chief
Minister, and depended too heavily on official
intelligence and lacked political advisors who could
have devised methods of keeping the MLAs intact.
Further, Lakshmi Parvathi was no match to
Chandrababu in political maneuvre.
On August 24, a virtual exodus took place to

Chandrababu because of a wrong step taken by
NTR. S.Ramachandra Rao was a lawyer who
364
appeared for Dronamraju Sathyanarayana, a

Congress (I) functionary, in a public interest petition
listing 198 charges of corruption, nepotism and
moral turpitude against NTR in 1988. Dronamraju
became a Member of Rajya Sabha on Congress (I)
ticket, and Ramachandra Rao did not get sufficient
recognition for his hard work and distanced himself
from the Congress (I). He was made Advocate
General by NTR after he became Chief Minister in
December, 1994. NTR naturally consulted him
about dissolution of the Assembly as the only option
available for him to overcome the crisis. The
Advocate General told him that the Governor was
bound to accept such a suggestion, if it was in the
form of a Cabinet resolution, and he even offered to
speak to the then Prime Minister, P.V.Narasimha
Rao, seeking his help in this regard. But the next day,
Ramachandra Rao shifted loyalties and appeared in
the Chandrababu camp, saying that the Governor
cannot advise of a Chief Minister who lost majority
support in the Assembly . The leakage of the move
caused immense damage to NTR, because another
365
50 to 60 MLAs walked over to Chandrababu in one
day since they did not want to face the electorate
within eight months of general elections.
Events moved fast on August 24, 1995, at NTR’s

house and at Viceroy Hotel. NTR tried to reach out
to his son, Harikrishna, offering him the post of
General Secretary of TDP but the latter rejected it.
NTR’s hopes rested on having the Governor dissolve
the Assembly. On August 28, S.Ramachandra Rao as
Advocate General under N.T.Rama Rao as Chief
Minister, argued before a division bench of the
Andhra Pradesh High Court that NTR had no
legitimacy or Constitutional authority to continue
as Chief Minister after the Speaker upheld
Chandrababu’s claim.
At the Viceroy Hotel, the theme of discussion

changed. NTR’s actor-son, Balakrishna, made a last
minute effort at reconciliation, and met NTR to
request him to keep Lakshmi Parvathi away from
politics, and away from NTR’s decision making
group. NTR agreed. Balakrishna conveyed this
366
assurance to Chanrababu, and other members of the

family, but they thought whatever assurance NTR
gave about Lakshmi Parvathi will have no meaning
because NTR was capable of reversing the decisions
a few days later. The time has come to replace NTR
as Leader, and elect Chandrababu in his place. So on
August 24, a total of 144 MLAs out of the 220 Telugu
Desam members assembled at a cinema theatre, and
formally elected Chandrababu as the Leader of
Telugu Desam Legislature Party, replacing NTR.
Dr Daggubati Venkateswara Rao, Leader of Telugu

Desam Parliamentary Party and an elder son-in-law
of NTR, proposed Chandrababu’s name, and NTR’s
son, Harikrishna, seconded it. NTR’s other sons,
film star Balakrishna, Ramakrishna, Jayasankar
Krishna, extended their support to Chandrababu.
The Speaker of the Assembly, Yanamala
Ramakrishnudu, issued a bulletin, announcing
Chandrababu’s election as Leader.
At 7 am on August 25, NTR presided over his

truncated Cabinet meeting with 21 Ministers, which
367
adopted a resolution, seeking dissolution of the
Assembly, and NTR went to Raj Bhavan to hand over
the letter to the Governor, Krishan Kant. The
Governor advised him to take a vote of confidence in
the Assembly on August 31, but NTR asked for time
till September 15 for the confidence vote, citing the
instance of Governor Ram Lal giving one month to
Nadendla Bhaskara Rao during a similar crisis in
August 1984. But Krishan Kant rejected the demand.
Later that day, the TDP MLAs supporting
Chandrababu came in three buses to Raj Bhavan for
a parade, but the Governor directed the Speaker of
the Assembly to verify their claim that 144 MLAs
were supporting Chandrababu.
NTR was already a defeated man, and he knew he

lost out in the numbers game, but still held on to his
views on Lakshmi Parvathi. He said that the
propoganda against Lakshmi Parvathi was
unjustified. If any MLA could produce a single piece
of evidence of Lakshmi Parvathi taking bribe, then
he would banish her from his house. “They are
368
speaking out of jealousy”, NTR said. Just as

Nadendla Bhaskara Rao said 11 years earlier, NTR
said that “these MLAs were taken to a Hotel where
they were held prisoners with promises of money and
power”
NTR’s next step was predictable – he decided to go

on a whirlwind tour of the State, to ask the people to
pressure their MLAs to act according to the mandate
they gave in December, 1994. By August 27,
Chandrababu Naidu’s strength rose to 164. The
Chandrababu camp put out a novel argument to win
over MLAs from NTR camp. This was that since
Chandrababu would be legally recognised as the
Leader of Telugu Desam, the group of 56 MLAs still
supporting NTR will lose their recognition since they
do not constitute a “split” in the party, because they
do not amount to one-third the strength of the
Legislature party under the Anti-Defection Law.
Therefore, they will not have any legal status, and so,
if Chandrababu wanted, he can ask the Speaker to
disqualify all of the 56 MLAs still supporting NTR,
369
branding them as defectors. The exodus was so fast
that Chandrababu Naidu had to make a statement
that he welcomed all TDP MLAs into his camp,
“except the dirty dozen” Ministers loyal to Lakshmi
Parvathi.
On August 27, Tamil film star Rajnikant arrived with

film star Mohan Babu to express support to
Chandrababu. Rajnikant told MLAs in
Chandrababu camp to show their “respect to NTR
by always keeping a vacant chair on the dias” just as
DMK leaders did in the 1950s, keeping a vacant chair
for Periar E.V.Ramaswami Naicker after they split
the Dravida Kazhagam. Ranjikant accused Lakshmi
Parvathi of having become an “evil force, and if she
had her say, Telugu Desam would become a burial
ground”
The next day, former Prime Minister, V.P.Singh, came,

as he said, “uninvited”, seeking a reconciliation “as
the most sagacious way out of the situation”.
V.P.Singh said he “felt sorry for what has happened”.
His mission ended in a failure because he was under
370
the impression that Lakshmi Parvathi was the cause

of the crisis while the issue was replacing NTR as
Leader.
By August 26, it was clear that Chandrababu was

going to be sworn in as the next Chief Minister.
NTR wrote a letter to the Governor saying that “the
will of the people and their overwhelming mandate is
sought to be thwarted by manipulative politics,
intrigue, deception and midnight coups. When a
mandate is being thwarted, the only fair and
appropriate forum for decision is the people. In all
established parliamentary democracies, when the
Head of a Government seeks dissolution, it is granted
automatically. The fundamental principle that
governs a democracy is the legitimacy of the elected
Government, and the people’s will behind it. This
legitimacy can never be acquired by manipulaive
politics”. The Governor ignored the letter, because it
was obvious that Chandrababu had a majority of the
MLAs with him while NTR lost his majority. Is the
Governor bound by the advice of a Chief Minister
who lost majority support?
371
NTR maintained that when the people voted for
Telugu Desam in December 1994 elections, they voted
for him as the Leader, and they “clearly,
unambiguously and explicitly understood” that he
would lead the Government for the full term of the
House!
Meanwhile, NTR’s family stood firmly and unitedly

against him. It was NTR’s turn to climb down step
by step to placate his family and MLAs. Lakshmi
Parvathi issued a statement, apologising to the
Telugu people “with folded hands, with tear filled
eyes, with a heart heavy with remorse” for the
mistakes she committed because of lack of
experience and lack of understanding. “For a small
mistake, the punishment is too big. From today, I will
have no role in politics. I will not interfere in any
aspect of the Government. I will be content to
remain a servant to NTR whom I worship, and I
appeal to you to believe me”. The NTR family
dismissed the statement as part of a drama.
Then on August 31, the date set by the Governor
372
Krishan Kant for NTR to prove his majority in the

Assembly, NTR had a pain in his chest, and was
admitted in the Medicity Hospitals. Hundreds of
people gathered outside the Hospital when they came
to know of his illness, but there were no major
incidents in the towns of Andhra Pradesh. At about
10 am that day, the Governor visited NTR in the
Hospital – and took the letter of resignation from
him. The Chandrababu camp also looked at NTR’s
illness as a dubious one, aimed at inciting NTR’s
numerous followers to create law and order problems
on the streets. That evening, NTR got himself
discharged and went home.
On September 1, Chandrababu Naidu was sworn in

as the new Chief Minister at a lack lustre function
because it was held under NTR’s huge shadow. He
took NTR’s son Harikrishna into his Cabinet but left
Dr D.Venkateswara Rao, his co-son-in-law and MP,
out. Chandrababu criticised the “low pace of
development” witnessed in eight months NTR was
Chief Minister, but said he would persue three
373
schemes that NTR initiated : Of supplying rice at Rs
2 a kilo, introducing total prohibition in the State and
supplying power at a flat rate of Rs 50 per horse
power. Chandrababu abandoned all three schemes
within the next two years.
Chandrababu went to NTR’s house straight from the

Raj Bhavan, along with his wife, Bhuvaneswari
(NTR’s daughter) and Harikrishna, NTR’s son.
NTR did not receive them, while a group of NTR
supporters shouted slogans against Chandrababu.
The Raj Bhavan road was cordoned off for two
kilometres either way, and invitees were checked for
passes at five points before they were allowed inside.
At the ceremony, Dr Venkateswara Rao looked tense
and absent minded, as he was hoping to be inducted
as the Deputy Chief Minister, but the inclusion of
Harikrishna virtually ruled him out.
Chandrababu won his vote of confidence in the

Assembly on September 7, with 227 voting for him,
with 28 MLAs supporting NTR suspended from the
House for unruly behaviour, and 31 remaining
374
neutral. Chandrababu got the support of 183 Telugu

Desam MLAs, five Independent MLAs, 34 MLAs
belonging to CPI and CPI (M), and four MLAs
belonging to Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen. In the
Assembly, NTR made a vain bid to make a
statement on his resignation, but the Speaker,
Y.Ramakrishnudu, told him that the first item on the
agenda was the vote of confidence, and after that, he
would permit NTR to speak. NTR said that he was
still the Leader of Telugu Desam Party, and had a
right to explain why he was sitting in the Opposition.
The Speaker said that the issue before the House was
not who was Leader of TDP, but the vote of
confidence.
The MLAs supporting NTR went to the Speaker’s

podium and picked up an argument with him for two
hours, when an MLA wrenched a mike and threw it
at the Speaker. The other Opposition MLAs
demanded that the MLAs should apologise for their
behaviour, and NTR apologised on their behalf,
saying that they were provoked because the Speaker
375
made an objectionable remark aganst NTR. The
Speaker denied having made the remark, “but if they
heard me so, then I will withdraw the remark”.
After that NTR again stood up to make a statement,

but none in the House, either the CPI, CPI (M), BJP,
Majlis or Independents stood up to ask that NTR be
permitted to speak. Surely, NTR had the right to
make a statement in the Assembly, because
momentous changes had taken place between two
sessions, he was sitting in the Opposition benches,
while someone else was sitting in the chair allotted to
the Leader of the House. Even a Minister who
resigns makes a routine statement in the House. The
Rules of Procedure are there for record, and people
speak out of turn on a regular basis in the Assembly.
But in respect of NTR, even the courtesy due to a
man who won a landslide victory in the elections was
not shown to him.
Then, the Speaker ordered suspension of the MLAs

loyal to NTR, including NTR, and NTR left the
Assembly, never to enter the House again.
376
Though NTR’s chapter as Chief Minister of Andhra

Pradesh ended, he kept up a barrage of legal issues
trying to focus public attention on the subterfuge and
political backstabbing that marked the change of
power in the State. He sent K.P.Krishna Shetty to
Bombay to persuade Nani A.Palkhivala to appear for
him in a case challenging Governor’s action in
disregarding his advice for dissolution of the
Assembly. Palkivala gave his opinion that “though it
was the prerogative of the Governor to ask anybody
to form a Government, it was totally wrong to ask
Chandrababu Naidu to form the new Government
under the guise of forming a Government of the
Telugu Desam Party, as Naidu was legally expelled
from the Party” Palkhivala however said he could
not come to Hyderabad because he had a number of
commitments in Bombay on the day NTR’s case
would come up for hearing in Hyderabad. Palkhivala
wrote: “Please take great care of your health, because
you have the potential to be a central leader of India”
In an article titled “Farce and Fraud in AP”,
377
published in THE HINDU on September 6, 1995,
Subash C.Kashyap, a former Secretary General of
Lok Sabha, said that the Governor ought to have
advised Chandrababu Naidu to defeat NTR’s
Government on the floor of the Assembly, when it
convened next in its normal course, because the
Governor is not “expected to monitor or verify the
continuance of majority support constantly on a day
to day basis”. The former Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, E.S.Venkatramiah, said that NTR’s
Telugu Desam continued to be the officially
recognised Telugu Desam, even if NTR had the
support of 20 MLAs, and Chandrababu Naidu’s
Telugu Desam should have been given a different
name even if it had the support of 180 MLAs, under
the provisions of Anti-Defection Law, because it was
MLAs belonging to Chandrababu who left the party
and formed a new group. NTR’s party was the
legally valid political institution, and its legitimacy
did not depend on the majority of MLAs remaining
with it.
378
NTR however lost his cases in Courts, and he had

only one chance to prove that “there is only one
Telugu Desam, and only one leader” and that was
when the next general election to Parliament would
take place in May, 1996. NTR’s following was such
that the followers did not come to the streets to his
rescue whenever he was in trouble, but they would
quietly tell the world that NTR was the man in whom
they place their trust when the chance came to them
in a general election, as they did in 1985 and in 1994.
So, NTR planned a series of public meetings, starting
with the one in Vijayawada on February 2, 1996, but
he did not live to participate in it.
A week before his death, NTR said, in an interview

to THE HINDU, that he will ask the voters in the
Lok Sabha elections whether they voted for him or for
Chandrababu Naidu in the 1994 Assembly elections,
and whether they approved the way in which
Chandrababu “usurped the mandate the people gave
to NTR”. “I am putting all the energy that I have left
in me to make the next election campaign a decisive
379
one. After the Vijayawada simha garjana rally on
February 2, I will hold similar rallies in Warangal
and Tirupati, and undertake an intense tour of all
the districts”, he had said.
On January 8, 1996, NTR spoke to V.P.Singh on the

telephone, and requested him to address the
Vijayawada rally. He also contacted Deve Gowda,
then Karnataka Chief Minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav,
then Bihar Chief Minister, Surjit Singh Barnala and
Prafulla Kumar Mohanta also to come to
Vijayawada. He said that the National Front
presidium would meet at 10 am in Vijayawada that
day. “I am looking forward to this rally and public
meeting since I want to explain to the people the
deception that my own kith and kin planned against
me, and I will seek a verdict from the people’s court
about the back-stabbing”, he had said. He was
happy that Lakshmi Parvathi earlier in the week went
to Delhi and participated in a seminar on democracy
in Myanamar, and in support of Aung San Suu Kyi.
NTR hoped to win 38 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats
380
from Andhra Pradesh in the 1996 elections, and he

would probably have won them.
Meanwhile, the Assembly suspended 28 MLAs loyal

to NTR, and referred to the Committee on Priveleges
their criticism of the Speaker’s behaviour as being
partisan. The MLAs wanted to know who paid for
the special flight of VIF airways by which the Speaker
and two others travelled from Rajahmundry to
Hyderabad on August 25 to verify the signatures of
MLAs supporting Chandrababu. The Speaker said
he was in Tuni on that day, and he was proceeding to
Visakhapatnam to take a regular flight, but at
Rajahmundry, Police informed him that a special
flight was ready to go to Hyderabad and therefore he
took it. The MLAs said Government could not have
paid for the flight, because then NTR ought to have
cleared it as he was Chief Minister on that day. The
Speaker issued a ruling saying that in future “no
Member should venture to raise any matter
whatsoever relating to the office of the Speaker, on
the floor of the House or outside, because criticism
381
against any person occupying the Chair is
reprehensible, and it is unheard of in the annals of
history of Legislatures”.
The High Court finally dismissed the writ petitions

challenging the Governor’s and the Speaker’s actions
during the crisis. The Court said that the Governor
did not go beyond Constitutional conventions in
disregarding NTR’s advice to dissolve the Assembly,
and since Chandrababu had the support of majority
of Members, “whether he belongs to Telugu Desam
or not, the Governor has not committed anything
wrong in the eye of law, in appointing him as Chief
Minister” The High Court however said that the
Speaker “acted outside his jurisdiction” when he
issued a bulletin informing Members that
Chandrababu was elected Leader of Telugu Desam
Legislature Party”. The Election Commission had to
decide which is the real Telugu Desam, the Court
said. Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP welcomed the
judgment as upholding democracy while NTR called
for the resignation of Chandrababu and the Speaker,
382
considering the “strictures” against the Speaker, but

this was ignored.
NTR went to Delhi and met the President, Dr

Shankar Dayal Sharma, complaining against the role
the Governor played during the crisis. In Hyderabad,
after Chandrababu expanded his Cabinet, Dr
Venkateswara Rao walked away from
Chandrababu’s camp to NTR’s camp with 18 MLAs,
because he was not included in the Ministry. This
was considered a farce, and did not create any
impact. Had Dr Venkateswara Rao stayed with NTR
during the crisis from August 24, it might have been a
different thing, but his return after proposing
Chandrababu’s name for Leader of Telugu Desam
Legislature Party, attending Chandrababu’s swearing
in ceremony, and waiting for the first Cabinet
expansion, did not amount to much.
NTR was upset at a Court decision that came on

January 17, 1996. The Telugu Desam Party had Rs
75 lakhs in its account, and NTR tried to withdraw
the amount, but Chandrababu Naidu approached the
383
High Court demanding that the money should be
frozen till it was legally established that he,
Chandrababu, headed the Telugu Desam Party and
he alone can operate the account. That day,
B.V.Mohan Reddy, an MLA from Kurnool district,
came to see NTR and they had dinner together. On
Television, there was a programme on L.V.Prasad,
the film producer of the 1940s who gave such a big
lift to NTR. While the programme was on, NTR
talked to Akkineni Nageswara Rao, another top star,
to recall their early film careers. Mohan Reddy left at
9.30 pm and NTR retired to bed.
What happened during NTR’s last few hours has

become a matter of conjecture. Lakshmi Parvathi
said later that he went to sleep, she heard him wake
up as usual at 4 am, have a shave, do some exercise,
but abruptly return to bed where he died. But the
general belief is that NTR died at 2 am, that she was
afraid of facing Chandrababu and NTR’s family
who had been so antagonistic to her, and some of her
confidents carried away suit cases with cash and
384
jewellery in it, before she informed

Dr Mahalakshmama, a gynaecologist who
performed the recanalisation operation on her, and
who was distantly related to K.Vijayabhaskara
Reddy, a former Chief Minister. Dr
Mahalakshmamma advised her to seek
Vijayabhaskara Reddy’s advise. Vijayabhaskara
Reddy advised her to inform NTR’s family first about
the death, and this death was revealed only after
4 am.
Harikrishna, Transport Minister in Chandrababu’s

Cabinet, was in Hongkong when NTR died, but he
issued a statement demanding a judicial enquiry into
the death. Harikrishna alleged that NTR was
subjected to mental torture by Lakshmi Parvathi,
demanding that he adopt her son by her first
marriage, that NTR resisted the attempt, and a
quarrel ensued. Harikrishna also questioned
Lakshmi Parvathi ‘s decision to telephone a
gynaecologist rather than a cardiologist for help.
According to Harikrishna, NTR died at 11 pm, but
385
the announcement was delayed because she
telephoned “her own people to shift suitcases”. He
also alleged that NTR’s youngest son, Jaishankar
Krishna, who was sleeping in the same house, was
not woken up till NTR’s death became public
knowledge.
Even before dawn, hundreds of people assembled

outside NTR’s house, grieving for the leader who
died in anguish. Lakshmi Parvathi wanted the body
kept in her house only, but leaders pointed out that
Road No 13 Banjara Hills was a narrow lane, and
the huge crowds cannot be expected to be sqeezed
into the lane to pay their last respects. And also, the
house was a small house, and the body cannot be
displayed for people to see from a distance. Finally,
NTR’s body was shifted to Lal Bahadur Stadium
where a huge dias was erected over which the body
was kept. Barricades were erected and people stood
in big queues to have a last glimpse of their leader.
As the day progressed, the MLAs loyal to Lakshmi

Parvathi occupied the dias and led in the mourning,
386
but in the evening, NTR’s sons and daughters

managed to sit on the dias. Lakshmi Parvathi sat on
a chair next to the body, and was the first person to
be consoled by leaders, but when she went to a toilet,
the chair was removed. This led to a quarrel and the
brothers Harikrishna and Balakrishna manhandled
G.Mudukrishnama Naidu, MLA, a Lakshmi
Parvathi loyalist, and tore his shirt. This was shown
on a Television network. Police intervened and
restored Lakshmi Parvathi’s chair, while Harikrishna
had another chair brought for him to sit.
NTR was finally cremated near Hussainsagar lake

adjacent to the State Secretariat. The road was
named “NTR Marg”, and the adjacent area
developed into an “NTR Gardens” which have
become tourist attractions , with hundreds of
families visiting the place daily. It was NTR’s idea
to have a big, monolith statue of Budha installed in
the middle of the lake and develop the area as a
“Budha Purnima” project and this was done. A road
was laid around the lake, called Necklace Road, and
387
a “peoples plaza” came up at the Necklace Road,
where music and dance performances are held.
NTR changed the course of history of Andhra

Pradesh. He is remembered today with affection, as
the man who gave a sense of identity to Telugu
speaking people.
388
Chandrababu
Had he not married NTR’s daughter, Chandrababu

Naidu would have had a zero chance of becoming
Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister. He used this
relationship to his political advantage. A series of
unexpected events, some meticulous planning, a
curiosity about new ideas that were successfully
tested elsewhere, plus some luck, pushed him to the
top of the political rung.
Chandrababu was a Congress (I) MLA between 1978

and 1983, and was a Minister for three years in the
Cabinets of T.Anjiah, Bhavanam Venkatram Reddy
and Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy. He learnt the art
of manoeuvre from his Congress (I) days. For 11
years, Chandrababu worked with NTR, first as a
confident, then as General Secretary of Telugu
Desam, and then as a Telugu Desam MLA from
1989-94 while NTR was Leader of Opposition. He
learnt the importance of self-discipline from NTR.
Between 1989-94, he started two ventures, the
Bhuvaneswari Carbides and Visnupriya Hotels, which
he sold later, and finally he set up the Heritage
389
Foods, a milk dairy, in which he partnered some
businessmen from whom he learnt the techniques of
corporate management and culture. These three
aspects stood him in good stood in the next phase of
his career as Chief Minister from 1995 onwards.
Chandrababu came from a middle class background.

Both his parents, Karjura Naidu and Ammenamma,
were illiterate. They had a farm of 24 acres in
Naravaripalle in Chittor district, a hamlet of
Seshapuram village, and the father sold part of this
land to educate his two sons, Chandrababu and
Ramamurthy Naidu. Ramamurthy became a Telugu
Desam MLA for one term. Chandrababu has two
sisters, who are married and settled down as
housewives.
Chandrababu went to school at Seshapuram, and to

the Sri Venkateswara Arts College at Tirupati for his
M.A. in Economics. Later, he enrolled himself for an
M.Phil degree of Sri Venkateswara University, taking
as his theme the ideas of N.G.Ranga on rural
development. Ranga was a leader from the days of
390
the freedom struggle, who conducted political classes

for young volunteers, which helped him to have a big
following among the Congress workers of the 1940s
and 1950s. He espoused the cause of farmers, and
promoted the concept of village self-reliance and
gram swaraj.
Chandrababu however did not complete his M.Phil

course. In 1978, with the help of a senior Congress
leader of the district, P.Rajagopal Naidu,
Chandrababu got a Congress (I) ticket to contest to
the Assembly from Chandragiri constitutency. Those
days, Jalagam Vengal Rao was completing his four
year term as Chief Minister, and Indira Gandhi, who
lost power in the 1977 general elections at the end of
the emergency, had split the Congress again, and the
Congress (I) was born on December 31, 1977.
Congressmen were confused as to their future. The
Congress in Andhra Pradesh divided into three
groups, one group consisting of Pidathala Ranga
Reddy and J.Chokka Rao joining the Janata Party
which was then in power at the Centre, while another
headed by Gaddam Rajaram opted to go with the
391
newly formed Congress (I) headed by Indira Gandhi,
for which group Dr Marri Channa Reddy had
already become President of Andhra Pradesh
Congress (I) Committee. Vengal Rao remained with
Congress (R), the prefix referring to Brahmananda
Reddy who was All India Congress President. There
was not much demand for the Congress (I) tickets,
but there was an Indira Gandhi wave in Andhra
Pradesh, and it rode to power with a comfortable
tally of 175 seats in a house of 294. Dr Channa
Reddy was the natural choice for Chief Minister. The
factional equations were such, and power was such a
magnet, that 45 out of 60 elected on Janata ticket ,
and all 30 elected on Congress (R), joined Dr Channa
Reddy’s bandwagon within six months. In the wave,
Chandrababu easily won the seat to Assembly.
Chandrababu spent his first two years as an MLA,

trying to find out the nuances of the group politics.
He was a teatoller, soft spoken and had sufficient
humility to respect elders. Though Dr Marri Channa
Reddy was a strong Chief Minister, factional politics
392
soon overtook him, and he had to go in September,

1980, a bitter man. T.Anjiah replaced him, forming a
jumbo “airbus” Cabinet of 63. Chandrababu got in,
as Minister for Cinematography, and he met film
stars including NTR to discuss steps to have the
Telugu film industry, based in Madras, shift to
Hyderabad.
NTR took a fancy for Chandrababu because he

came to know about his personal habits. NTR was a
tall figure in the Kamma community while
Chandrababu was virtually at the bottom in terms of
his wealth and social status, but NTR’s brother,
Trivikrama Rao, met Chandrababu and proposed
that he marry Bhuvaneswari, NTR’s daughter.
Trivikrama Rao accompanied Chandrababu to
NTR’s house when Chandrababu saw his future wife
and NTR had a talk. Subsequently, Trivikrama Rao
went to Tirupati and met Chandrababu’s parents
and took their consent for marriage.
Chandrabu’s marriage to NTR’s daughter took place

while he was Minister in Anjiah’s cabinet in 1981..
393
NTR was still a film star, and his future intention to
enter politics was not yet public knowledge.
Chandrababu looked at the marriage as a good
alliance into a rich family. When NTR did
announce his intention to enter politics in 1982, as a
Congress Minister, Chandrababu did not envisage a
big future for NTR, and asserted at a press
conference, that he would contest against NTR if the
Congress asked him to do so. Chandrababu had
made a big mistake in his assessment, and in the 1983
elections, he was defeated by a Telugu Desam
candidate at Chandragiri and NTR rode to power.
Chandrababu cooled his heels for the next six
months, because the other NTR’s son-in-law, Dr
Daggubati Venkateswara Rao, had already
established himself in NTR’s camp, having
campaigned with him from April, 1982 and was
head of the Publicity wing of the Party.
Chandrababu however gained access to NTR’s inner

circle by the end of 1983, and became a close
confident. Chandrababu also played a crucial role in
394
the August, 1984 crisis when NTR’s Government was

dismissed, and with the help of the entire Opposition
in the Country and a massive public movement,
NTR regained power a month later. Chandrababu
was made Chairman of Karshaka Parishat, a newly
set up farmers’ federation, but this led to a public
uproar, and the Courts struck down the GO and the
Karshak Parishat became a non-starter. In the 1989
elections, Chandrababu won his seat in the Assembly
from Kuppam constituency, but NTR lost power, and
Chandrababu again played a big role in the
Opposition. Congress Chief Ministers tried to
cultivate Chandrababu because NTR was not
accessible to them, but Chandrababu played his cards
well, without projecting his image, to the detriment
of his equation with NTR. Chandrababu was
virtual Leader of Opposition in 1993 and 1994, when
NTR vowed never to enter the Assembly again -
except as Chief Minister - when he was suspended
from the Assembly along with other TDP MLAs for
“creating disturbance in the House” while NTR was
simply sitting without uttering a word.
395
The entry of Lakshmi Parvathi into NTR’s life was a
big turning point for Chandrababu Naidu, who was
slowly being sidelined and ignored in the new set up
that came to power after the December, 1994
elections. Now Chandrababu was Minister for
Finance and Revenue. He used the techniques of
manoeuvre to spread his influence among Telugu
Desam MLAs, won the support of the allies of
Telugu Desam such as the Left parties, and struck at
NTR when the latter was least expecting such a blow.
In his heart of hearts, Chandrababu was unhappy
that he had to come to power by alienating NTR and
incurring his wrath, but he justified this as necessary.
Chandrababu was convinced that under Lakshmi
Parvathi’s influence, NTR would soon dissipate his
goodwill and end as a failure in his second term as
Chief Minister.
When he became Chief Minister on Sept 1, 1995,

Chandrababu Naidu announced that he would
continue the three programmes that NTR initiated
after the 1994 general elections – of supplying rice at
396
Rs 2 per kg, (a promise that NTR actually made in

1982 , at the time of founding Telugu Desam, and
implemented by him from 1983 to 1989), of
introducing total prohibition in the State, and
charging farmers with tubewell irrigation at a flat
rate of Rs 50 per HP per year. But Chandrababu
abandoned all the three schemes within the next two
years.
NTR intended the rice subsidy to reach only families

below the poverty line, defined in 1983 as those with
an annual income of less than Rs 4,800 a year. These
families constituted around 30 per cent of the
population in 1976 and had reduced to 16 per cent in
1991, estimated through national sample surveys, but
about 70 per cent of the population was taking rice
at Rs 2 per kilo, at the rate of five kilos per head per
family. The annual outgo was 22 lakh tonnes, for a
total of about 100 lakh families, out of the 136 lakh
families in the State. Also, two rupees of 1983 came
to Rs 6 in 1994 after adjusting against inflation,
because a dollar was worth Rs 10.31 in 1983 and
397
Rs 31.36 in 1994. Targetting the subsidies to those
people below poverty line, for whom the Government
intended the scheme, became a major political
problem, and there was very big political opposition
to any move to withdraw these cards from the
beneficiaries. The Congress Chief Minister, Dr
M.Channa Redd, had a random survey done in some
villages of East Godavari district, and he was
surprised to find that a man who owned a cinema
theatre, and another who owned a petrol bunk, also
possessed white cards, enabling them to buy rice at
Rs 2 per kilo. There was a demand for white cards
because treatment at Government-run super
speciality hospitals, such as the Nizam’s Institute of
Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, was free to white
card holders. The rumour that Channa Reddy
planned to cancel these white cards cost the Congress
(I) dearly in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, because it
could win only three seats out of the 18 that went to
poll in the first phase of polling. Rajiv Gandhi’s
assassination saved the party, because it won 18 out
of 24 seats in the next phase, after the assassination.
398
NTR gave the slogan for total prohibition because

of a unique incident in Nellore village in 1993. Real
wages of labourers in villages were going down , and
for a “kick” they had to spend more on arrack. In
one village, the arrack seller used more chloral
hydrate to give more “kick”, resulting in one labourer
walking into a pond and drowning in it. An adult
literacy programme was on in that district, and
women had a lesson about what women did when
menfolk took to drink and neglected their families –
forcibly closing down the arrack shop! Inspired by
that lesson, and prompted by social activists, the
women did just that in Nellore village. This received
wide publicity in the press, and everyone appreciated
the women’s action, and it snowballed into a
movement for total prohibition. K.Vijyabhaskara
Reddy, who was Chief Minister at that time, banned
sale of arrack, and NTR said he would introduce
total prohibition the moment he was sworn in as
Chief Minister. He kept this promise, signing the file
before a big gathering in Lal Bahadur Stadium, after
he was sworn in as Chief Minister at 12.02 pm on
399
December 12, 1994. NTR banned sale of Indian
Made Foreign Liquor, closed bars, and issued a
system of permits for those above 60 wanting liquor
on health grounds. To show he was more committed,
Chandrababu in 1996 cancelled these health permits
as well.
Giving power at Rs 50 per HP was the least

controversial those days. In the 1980s there was a
countrywide farmers movement, headed by
Narayanaswamy Naidu in Coimbatore, Mahendra
Thikait in Uttar Pradesh and Sharad Joshi in
Maharashtra, when the metres attached to pumpsets
were removed all over the Country. Since then, power
was given free to farmers in States where agricultural
pumpsets were minimum, while in States like Andhra
Pradesh a flat rate was charged. Andhra Pradesh
had about 18 lakh pumpsets, and the Government
always estimated that these farmers used 40 per cent
of power generated, which is a clever manipulation
because the “unmetered” power consisted of
agricultural power and power loss due to theft and
distribution problems, and it suited the Government,
400
to underestimate theft and loss, and overestimate

agricultural consumption.
Chandrababu spent his first year in office in trying to

consolidate his position, and he obtained legitimacy
only after winning 16 seats in the Lok Sabha in the
1996 elections, and helping CPI and CPI (M) to win
three more seats, out of 42 in the State. The TDP and
its allies polled 37.89 per cent popular vote. Lakshmi
Parvathi, who contested on the plank of being the
sole heir to NTR legacy, drew a blank, though she
polled 10.66 per cent of the popular vote. The split in
Telugu Desam vote benefitted the Congress (I), which
won 22 seats with 39.66 per cent of vote.
Around this time, Chandrababu started to take

seriously the visit of teams from the World Bank that
came to scrutinise the welfare programmes in Andhra
Pradesh, as part of a move to give a massive loan for
“structural adjustment”. Chandrababu listened to
even minor officials who came with new ideas, told
him about the trends in the world economy, and
explained the reason why Singapore, South Korea,
401
Malaysia, Hong Kong, and China were able to make
such rapid strides compared to India. Chandrababu
started to realise that his understanding of
administration was faulty, and that he had to change
his “mindset” to usher in progress.
The World Bank teams studied the Andhra Pradesh

economy, and showed that the annual rate of growth
of the Gross State Domestic Product was 4.6 per cent
for 1980-95, much less than the Country’s average of
5.2 per cent. Andhra Pradesh’s per capita income
was 70 per cent of the six fastest growing States in
the Country in 1980, but this fell to 50 per cent in
1994. AP’s GDP was Rs 8,190 crores in 1980 and
increased to Rs 14,950 crores in 1994 at constant
prices, while per capita income increased from Rs
1,543 to Rs 2,111. The State’s debt was 27 per cent of
GDP, while revenue was 15 per cent and expenditure
16 per cent. Wages of about 12 lakhs Government
employees constituted 7.2 per cent of GSDP, and
salary bill grew at 5.6 per cent in a year in real terms
for 10 years, due to a 4.1 per cent annual increase in
402
employment and 1.5 per cent increase in real wages.

The subsidies given for the Rs 2 per kg rice scheme
and total prohibition came to 3 per cent of GSDP,
while subsidies given to Irrigation and power sector
came to 2.8 per cent, and the 39 State Public Sector
Undertakings received a subsidy of 1 per cent .
Andhra Pradesh has a rural economy completely

dependent on monsoon. Rice production declined
from 129 lakh tonnes in 1988 to 118 lakh tonnes in
1995, mainly due to bad monsoons which resulted in
fall in cropped area. But, yields remained stagnant
across 20 years, while in some crops they declined.
AP had a net irrigated area of 3.9 million hectares in
1993, compared to 4.3 million in 1989 (a good
monsoon year) and 3.5 million in 1980. Total
cropped area was stagnant, at 12.7 million hectares
in 1993 compared to 12.3 in 1980 and 13.3 in 1989.
Fertiliser use however increased from 0.6 million
tonnes in 1980 to 1.6 mt in 1989 and 1.5 mt in 1993.
In such a scenario how will one go about developing

the State? In 1996, Government needed Rs 45,000
403
crores to complete irrigation projects on hand, such
as the Telugu Ganga project and the Lift irrigation
for Godavari at Devadula. Government would
require Rs 3,000 crores to replace transformers and
distribution lines to give quality power. Subsidies
intended for the poor, such as for the rice scheme,
were going into the pockets of the middle classes.
School enrolments were falling because there were not
adequate teachers in primary schools and child
labour was rampant. Doctors were refusing to go to
villages to work in primary health centres with the
result diarrhoea, malaria, tuberculosis, became
major illnesses in the State. Chandrababu was
seeking a loan of Rs 7,200 crores from the World
Bank for the State’s “structural adjustment” and
another Rs 3,600 crores for reforms in the power
sector, and Chandrababu saw in the World Bank a
much needed fund provider. In Chandrababu’s view,
a lender will lay certain conditions and what is
wrong in following the conditions if these conditions
were good for the State? He felt that one can accept
good advice wherever it came from.
404
Chandrababu accepted the advise of the World Bank

teams and decided to reduce subsidies and make
power tariffs sustainable, but to provide a political
“cushion” to these reforms, he released status papers
on the State’s financial position, and organised
seminars at Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam,
Vijayawada, among other towns. This strategy also
came from the World Bank. In these seminars,
academics, lawyers, doctors and those in the Non
Governmental Organization sector discussed steps to
accelerate development in the State. A point of view
was thus encouraged to develop in the middle classes
that there is need for reform if the State had to
develop.
In 1996, Chandrababu revised power tariffs by 19 to

56 per cent for different categories of consumers,
reducing the loss of Andhra Pradesh State Electricity
Board by Rs 900 crores or 1.4 per cent of GDP. In
July 1996, he increased the subsidised rice price from
Rs 2 to Rs 3.50 per kg, reduced the allotment to four
kgs per individual per month, from 5 kgs before,
405
reducing subsidy by 0.7 per cent of GDP. On 18 April
1997, Chandrababu removed total prohibition, thus
earning Rs 887 crores of excise income, up from zero
the previous year. He increased the “water rate” for
farmers under delta irrigation to one bag of 75 kgs
of paddy, worth about Rs 400, per acre, from a flat
rate of Rs 50 before. He tightened receipts from
existing departments, through a process of frequent
monitoring. In 1997-98, sales tax revenue went up by
34 per cent to Rs 4,728 crores, while Motor Vehicles
Tax went up by 16 per cent to Rs 636 crores. Income
from mines went up by 37 per cent to Rs 449 crores,
while income from Interest earned went up by 10 per
cent to Rs 903 crores.
Public protests began to develop at the Andhra

Pradesh Government sucumbing to the pressures of
the World Bank. The State budget for 1997 was first
scrutinised by World Bank teams before it was
presented to the Assembly, a fact acknowledged by
P.Ashok Gajapathi Raju, the Finance Minister, in his
budget speech. The CPI (M) called Chandrababu a
406
“daily wage labourer of World Bank”. And in

October, 1997, Edwin Lim, the Country Director of
World Bank, and his team interacted with academics
in Hyderabad, and asserted, without batting an
eyelid, that the reforms were initiated by the State
Government on its own, and that the World Bank had
nothing to do with it. Lim disowned the document
published by the World Bank titled: “Andhra
Pradesh:Agenda for Economic Reforms”, which was
sold at an adjacent counter for Rs 50 per copy. The
World Bank wanted to distance itself from the reform
agenda of the State Government in view of the
protests, and the economists did it rather crudely.
The World Bank economists never met the press

before, nor since, and the assertion was necessary to
set the record straight, in tune with the declared
policy of the Bank not to get involved in political
controversies in Countries receiving its aid. If one
were to believe Lim, the State Government was
convinced of the need for reforms on its own, and by
some coincidence, these were exactly the reforms the
407
World Bank wanted, and codified in its Agenda. Lim
asserted that the World Bank did not impose any
conditions, and that the Agenda was prepared by the
Bank staff for its own understanding. Chandrababu
Naidu also went with this view. He denied that there
was any pressure from the World Bank to persue the
reform agenda, and that whatever the Government
initiated was its own agenda. When the Opposition
parties demanded that the World Bank report be
placed on the table of the Assembly, the Chief
Minister asked how could Government place a World
Bank report. He said Government can place only its
own reports in the assembly. After this controversy,
the World Bank reports concerning Andhra Pradesh
were kept for reference at the British Library in
Hyderabad.
The Appraisal report of the World Bank in 1999

reviewed the progress of the economic restructuring
project of Andhra Pradesh, and noted that there was
strong opposition to politically sensitive aspects of
the reforms, such as effective targetting of rice
408
subsidy, staff rationalisation, privatisation, closure of

unviable public enterprises and more effective
collection of user charges. “Since State elections are
due in November 1999, such changes would act as a
focal point for the Opposition. The design for the
project has been carefully tailored to deal with
political realities and a wide scope would exist for
restructuring the project or even discontinuing it in
the event of negative political developments”, so
wrote Edwin Lim.
The World Bank economists entertained the idea

that Chandrababu might lose in the 1999 general
elections, but he came back to power with a big
majority, and the fact that Chandrababu won in a
popular election after taking hard, unpopular
decisions attracted the notice of the World’s press.
The “NEWSWEEK” magazine in its special issue
dated July 2000 said: “This politician is a peaceful
revolutionary. Naidu’s message: No more freebies.
Plug in your computers and get to work”. In an
article titled: “India’s Virtual Visionary”, the
409
Financial Times, London, said in January 31, 2000,
that “honesty and zeal for e-governance has swept
Chandrababu Naidu to the forefront of politics”
Even before elections, Chandrababu’s commitment to

digital revolution was commented upon by the
ECONOMIST magazine, in its survey on India and
Pakistan in May 1999. It said: “Chandrababu
Naidu is making a point which India desperately
needs to take note of: that there is no conflict between
efficiency and social justice, and that enterprise need
not be the enemy of equality. The sort of revolution
Mr Naidu is aiming for in Andhra Pradesh -
managerial, not an ideological one, is exactly what
India needs”. BUSINESSWEEK named
Chandrababu a “Star of Asia” in June 1999. TIME
said that “Beating Bangalore, and the rest of India, a
plugged-in chief minister’s reforms are remaking
Andhra Pradesh”.
Though the press in Andhra Pradesh was hostile to

Chandrababu, the World’s press praised him for
being a different kind of a politician who looked
410
ahead towards better governance. Chandrababu no

doubt basked in this glory, but he was looking for
new ideas to transform Hyderabad into a
“knowledge hub”.
Chandrababu’s nature was to ask anyone who met

him as to what he should do to improve
administrative performance. “My main problem is
how to motivate the Government employees. They
don’t seem to respond to any suggestions I give
them”, he would frequently say. He will never say: “I
am planning to do this… Do you think it would be
good?” He would never reveal what he was thinking
about, but would pool advices from several persons,
who were leaders in their respective fields, and form a
consensus within himself, which he would place
before his core advisors team for possible adverse
reaction from politicians, press and the people. He
would then arrive at a decision.
From his first days in office, Chandrababu planned to

introduce computers in the administration in a big
way, by stages, so that he could get over the problem
411
of paper work, of bribery involved in clerical staff
suppressing files and saying it did not come from the
Minister’s table, of a huge backlog of accumulated
files and so on. The first department to take to
computers was the Commercial Taxes department.
A COMPACT (computer aided administration of
commercial taxes) was in place with 450 computers,
the entire software developed inhouse using Foxpro
on DOS, with 16 out of 36 checkposts in the state
computerised, and the computer having data of
3,07,000 traders paying sales tax in the State. A
trader receives goods through one of the checkposts
on the State’s borders, and a computer adds this
goods to the trader’s stock register. The CT
department collects data on computer from 182
commercial tax offices, and 16 checkposts,
transmitting data monthly to the Deputy
Commissioners of CT. The computerisation helped
detect Rs 22.69 crores of turnover tax evaded and Rs
1.58 crore additional tax was collected. This was a
very marginal improvement but it was good
beginning.
412
Next the offices of the District Registrars and Sub-

Registrars of Registration were computerised, using a
software designed by the National Informatics
Centre. The department used two Pentium-Pro
servers, 3 Pentium clients, a scanner, a laser jet printer
and 3 DMP printers at each location. The
registration of document dealing with sale or
mortgage of property involves payment of stamp
duty, which is proportional to the value of the
property, and the values of all the properties in
various localities of Hyderabad was computerised.
The computerisation helped in a big way, because
earlier, documents had to be copied and held in huge
volumes in record rooms, but the entire information
held in one room was preserved in one CD-ROM. The
Government amended the Indian Stamp Act to
provide legal validity to documents held in CD-ROM
on par with documents held in big volumes in the
past. The two computerised departments became
show pieces and teams of officials from various
States visited these departments in 1997 and 1998 to
see how things were going on.
413
Next, the accounts of the Andhra Pradesh State
Electricity Board, the Municipal Corporation of
Hyderabad, the Hyderabad Metro (water supply and
sewerage board), and several other departments were
computerised, and e-Seva Centres were opened at
about 30 locations in Hyderabad where citizens
could pay their electricitity bills, Municipal taxes,
water charges, telephone bills all at one counter.
These e-Seva centres became popular and about
50,000 transactions were being recorded per day by
August, 2003. By November that year, the e-Seva
services were extended to 130 locations in different
towns in Andhra Pradesh, including Vijayawada,
Guntur, Visakhapatnam etc. Earlier, a man had to
go to one particular Division Office of the APSEB to
pay his power bills, standing in a big queue because
each transaction had to be written down in registers,
receipts prepared and handed over. For telephone
bills, one had to go to selected post offices to make
payments, and so on with each department. The e-
Seva centre completes the transaction in one minute,
and the receipt and original bill are handed over to
414
the citizen. The citizen could pay the bill by cash, or

cheque, or credit card. Waiting time was reduced.
The e-Seva centre became the most visible face of the
computer to the common citizen in Hyderabad.
The Duggirala gram panchayat in Guntur district

became the first village in the State to have its records
computerised, in March 1999. Its Sarpanch,
J.V.Krishna Rao, could give, at the click of the
mouse, birth and death certificates, property tax
details, data of number of households, the ward wise
lists of voters, and the names of ration cardholders.
The computerised system was a gift from Dr Anil
Kumar of Resonance Technologies, Hyderabad, and
his cousins, who all hailed from Duggirala and
wanted to give something in return to their place of
birth. It was built on Visual Basic 5.0 on the front
end and MS- Access at the back end, at a cost of Rs
2 lakhs.
The National Informatics Centre at Hyderabad

created a data base for Andhra Pradesh Government
on the Microsoft Windows NT/SQL server platform
415
to streamline information relating to Janmabhoomi,
crop, treasury, land and rainfall data. A massive data
collection programme incorporating 71 socio-
economic indicators of every habitation in the State
having more than 200 people was prepared. The
volume of data digitised in this programme came to
a staggering 50 gega bytes, and to access the
information, a super computer made by Silicon
Graphics was obtained from the United States.
The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee,

inaugurated the Hyderabad Information Technology
and Engineering Consultancy City (HITEC City) at
Madhapur in November, 1998. This was a circular
building, 10 storeys high, having 5 lakh square feet
plinth area, built at a cost of Rs 85 crores. It has a
2-megabite satellite earth station, uninterrupted
water and power supply, concealed cabling and dust
free environment. There is an international gateway
adjacent to it. Larson & Toubro had built the
HITEC City, with 87 per cent equity, the rest having
been contributed by the Andhra Pradesh Government
416
by way of the cost of land given. L&T offered space

to companies at Rs 2,700 per square feet, compared
to Rs 5,000 offered in Bangalore in a similar venture
also built by L&T, at that time.
The old Collectorate for Ranga Reddy district, built

at Gachibowli and remaining vacant because
employees refused to move to this area from the city
of Hyderabad from where it still functions, was given
to Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT).
Companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Silicon
Graphics have set up schools, with their own faculties
and they give certificates for six months to one year
course of studies. About 31,000 students appeared
for entrance test for the post graduate courses at the
IIIT in 1999 and of them 500 qualified for admission,
half of them from within Andhra Pradesh.
An Indian School of Business, described as an

“institution that will groom leaders of the new
World”, has come up in 250 acres of land adjacent to
the University of Hyderabad. The ISB has
partnership with J.L.Kellog Graduate School of
417
Management, Northwestern University, and the
Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. It
has a board that includes captains of Indian industry,
such as Anil Ambani, Rahul Bajaj,
Kumaramangalam Birla, Adi Godrej among others.
Since Andhra Pradesh did not have either an Indian
Institute of Management or an Indian Institute of
Technology, the IIIT and ISB were welcome additions
to educational infrastructure in the State. A total of
126 students completed their post graduate
programme at the Indian School of Business in 2002,
and of them 100 students got campus placements on
an average salary of Rs 9 lakhs per year. An ICICI
Knowledge Park was also established on a 200 acre
site at Turkapalli village in which four companies
took modules of 3,000 square feet out of 10 that
came to be established in the next one year in phases.
Medicorp Technologies, Pulsar Electro Optics, Bijam
Bioscience and Med Gene Biotech were the first four
companies that rented these modules. These were so
designed that a group of researchers can stay in the
Knowledge Park for a year or two, conduct the
418
research they wanted to do in world class

environment with all the connectivity and sterile
laboratory atmosphere needed, and when their work
was over, could move back to their parent companies.
The IT sector got a boost only after Chandrababu

Naidu became Chief Minister in 1995. This was
because earlier, accessing Internet was to be via
Bangalore or Bombay, and the telephone call was
charged at STD rates and Internet could not be used
for business purposes. Chandrababu used to point
out that United States issued H1 B visas for
employment to 55,047 Indian professionals in 1999,
compared to 6,665 Chinese, 5,779 from Japan and
3,339 from Philippines. He would present India as the
“fourth largest economy in the world, in terms of
purchasing power parity with a Gross National
Product of two trillion dollars”, that has a 300
million strong middle class. Chandrababu’s Vision
2020 document, prepared by McKinsay, says that
they will set up a “knowledge and learning society
built on the values of hard work, honesty, discipline
and collective sense of purpose”.
419
Chandrababu faced strong criticism from the
Opposition parties for his efforts at getting the IIIT
and ISB. The then Congress (I) Leader of
Opposition, P.Janardhana Reddy demanded in the
assembly that the Government should direct these
two institutions to have reservations for Scheduled
Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes.
Janardhana Reddy made the allegation that
Chandrababu received substantial kickbacks and
commissions. “He is anti-SC, anti-ST, anti-BC and
pro-Tata, pro-Birla, and pro-Ambani”, he accused.
Janardhana Reddy asserted that Congress was for
IT-sector, “which was introduced by Rajiv Gandhi
while he was Prime Minister”.
The Assembly debate on the subject, during February

1999, showed that there was no proper appreciation
for the setting up of a school of international
standards in the IT sector. Chandrababu however
went on the offensive, pointing out that the sons and
daughters of Congress MLAs, Janardhana Reddy,
Gade Venkata Reddy and M.Kothanda Reddy were
420
software professionals in United States. “When we

offer similar facilities to other boys and girls in
Andhra Pradesh, you accuse us of promoting elitism.
When we speak of IT revolution, you say it was Rajiv
Gandhi who ushered it, but when we usher in
computer revolution, you accuse us of helping only
the rich because computers do not help the poor”, he
said. Chandrababu said that earlier Congress
Governments gave land to private schools such as
Nasr and Roots, and asked what reservations were
they enforcing in their schools for Scheduled Castes,
Scheduled Tribes and Backward classes. There were
none.
By 2002, Hyderabad had 1,200 IT software

companies, a total of 53,000 professionals and 4,100
support staff. Exports from the Hyderabad’s
Software Technology Park came to Rs 3,600 crores.
This was not much, considering that the total IT
software exports from the Country that year was Rs
21,000 crores. But Hyderabad was a late starter, it
was on the IT map of the Country, and Andhra
421
Pradesh’s strenth lay in a number of software
professionals working in the United States, who
made big money, and sent back some of it to their
relatives to set up IT companies in the State.
Hyderabad was ranked first by National
Association of Software Companies (NASSCOM) in
terms investment opportunites for the IT Enabled
Services sector.
The IT revolution however touched the middle

classes, while the poor were left out, and those left
out turned against the entire reform process. From
1971 onwards, when Indira Gandhi came up with the
“garibi hatao” (remove poverty) slogan, and won a
parliamentary election, the commitment to remove
poverty has been the major cornerstone of every
political party, and NTR also said: “the society is a
temple, and the poor are my deities”. The Telugu
Desam’s principal objective was to help the poor first
and foremost. “What for is a Government, if it
cannot provide a handful of rice to a hungry
individual?” NTR would dramatically ask, at every
422
public meeting in 1982. It was therefore difficult to

integrate an economic reform agenda with the
commitment to help “the poorest of the poor”,
because this entailed giving subsidies on a large scale,
while the first condition of reform is to make them
“sustainable”, that is, of the beneficiaries paying for
the benefits in a sustained manner. A major problem
in targetting the poor, was the demand for the
inclusion of lower middle classes also in the list of the
poor. The surveys conducted by an anti-poverty
programme called VELUGU (light) with funding
from the British DFID, of the families below poverty
line, was opposed by the Left Parties on the ground
that a majority of poor were left out, and they made
the demand that the white cards (that enabled poor
to buy rice at Rs 6.50 a kilo) should be given to those
families with an annual income of Rs 36,000, thus
increasing the poverty level from Rs 11,000 before.
An administrator cannot enlarge the target group on
political considerations, but the agitations criticised
the Government for limiting the number of poor
families “according to the dictates of World Bank”.
423
In the beginning, Chandrababu allowed the criticism
to snowball, but later corrected himself through a
series of welfare measures.
Chandrababu set up a different agenda for himself as

Chief Minister. Unlike previous Chief Ministers, he
started making “surprise visits” to various parts of
Hyderabad city and to various towns in the districts,
participated in grama sabhas in every district during
the 19 rounds of Janmabhoomi programmes, and
interacted with people at village and town levels. He
introduced a weekly phone-in programme over All
India Radio and Doordarsan, and after 200 episodes
of this programme in July, 2003, he organised a
round table with writers and journalists seeking
advice on how to make the programme more
effective. He innovated in administration, privatising
50 per cent of sanitation work in the Municipal
Corporation of Hyderabad, and a year later, gave the
task to DWCRA self-help mahila groups, so that
they could earn more. The town looked dirty when
the sanitation upkeep was in the hands of full time
424
employees of the MCH, but once it was privatised,

the town looked cleaner and better.
Another innovative idea was the “rythu bazaar” (the

farmers’s market). Officials identified about 30
villages sorrounding Hyderabad where vegetables
were grown, gave identity cards to two members of
the farmers families, and sent a bus at 5 am daily
when the farmer brought his vegetables to the market
and sold it directly to the urban consumer,
eliminating the commission agent. Another bus went
to the village at 2 pm, when the farmer was relieved
by his wife, son or daughter. The wholesale market
rates were displayed on the boards, and the
vegetables were sold visibly cheap, and so there was
no need to bargain. The official’s role was to prevent
traders entering the rythu bazaar in the garb of
farmers. About 100 such bazaars were functioning
all over the State by 2003, and of them, 70 functioned
well.
Chandrababu also initiated a number of welfare

measures to keep his vote bank intact. Before the
425
1999 elections, he gave 10 lakh new connections of
LPG (liquid petroleum gas) to women belonging to
lower income groups, for which Government gave a
subsidy of Rs 500 towards deposit for the gas
cylinder. A number of middle class women also got
their LPG through the scheme. The poor women
found it difficult to continue their LPG connections
because the initial cost of a gas cylinder, of Rs 270
per 14.5 kg cylinder, was beyond their means, and
they had to carry the empty cylinder on a bullock
cart or auto rickshaw to the nearest town for a
replacement. But the LPG was popular because
there was no fuss in lighting the gas stove, as
compared to making fire with firewood or coal, and
smoke was eliminated. As the scheme progressed, it
was found that most of the women from poorer
classes did not get replacements on a regular basis,
and that some of them gave up the connections
altogether. When another 10 lakh LPG connections
was announced for distribution in 2003, there was no
demand!.
426
Chandrababu’s national politics
The anti-Congress stance of N.T.Rama Rao was

inherited by Chandrababu Naidu when the latter
became the Chief Minister in 1995. When NTR was
Chief Minister, antoganistic Congress (I)
Governments were at the Centre, headed by Indira
Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and P.V.Narasimha Rao, and
NTR virtually fought a running battle with the
Congress (I), first when they destabilised his
Government in August, 1984, then through a series of
encounters with Union Ministers who tried to insult
and humiliate him, and then through a series of
events such as the case against him in the High Court
on charges of nepotism, casteism etc.
Chandrababu was lucky to have friendly

Governments headed by H.D.Deve Gowda, I.K.Gujral
and Atal Behari Vajpayee at the Centre.
Chandrababu made the best use of this development,
and tried to get maximum aid for the State, such as
having 30 lakh tonnes of rice for the “food for work”
programme when the State was hit with an
unprecedented drought in 2002 out of the 50 lakh
tonnes sanctioned for the whole Country.
427
Self interest marked Chandrababu’s approach to
national politics. He is basically a regional leader,
but he looked at the national politics from his own
perspective of whether it would help him politically,
whether he can get more funds from the Centre for
Andhra Pradesh development, and whether it was
good for his Telugu Desam Party in the long run.
Chandrababu became Convenor of United Front,
which gave two Prime Ministers to the nation, and he
gave crucial outside support to the National
Democratic Alliance Government of Vjpayee. He
was the least troublesome ally of the NDA. Both
Vajpayee and L.K.Advani found it easy to do
business with Chandrababu, because he made no
political demands, and was satisfied with a grant of
relief or sanction of a project.
In 1996, Congress under P.V.Narasimha Rao lost

power, BJP emerged as the single largest Party, and
there was a hung Parliament. The non-Congress and
non-BJP parties formed a United Front and made
Chandrababu the Convenor, because he was young
428
and represented a regional Party and he did not have

any ego problem. The United Front decided that
none of them would support the BJP if it formed the
Government.
Chandrababu went to Delhi in a jubilant mood and

asserted that they would form the Government. As
leader of the largest Party, Atal Behari Vajpayee was
invited to form the Government, and he did so, and
stayed in office for just 13 days, because no one from
the United Front was willing to break ranks to help
him continue in office. Vajpee moved his motion
seeking vote of confidence, announced he would not
continue in office, and went to Rashtrapathi Bhavan
to hand over his resignation letter. Vajpayee won the
support of the middle classes by his gentlemanly
performance, and this helped the BJP in the next Lok
Sabha election in 1998. The Congress, under Sitaram
Kesari, decided to extend outside support to a non-
BJP Government at the Centre, and thus the United
Front got a chance to govern.
Chandrababu played a major role in this exercise.
429
The United Front’s first option was to invite the
Marxist leader, Jyothi Basu, to lead the Front and
become Prime Minister. Basu was willing but the CPI
(M) was not, and the UF leaders, after a great deal of
introspection, suggested that Chandrababu should
become Prime Minister. Chandrababu knew that the
UF’s future was shaky, as it depended on a whimsical
support of Sitaram Kesari, and at best he can be
Prime Minister for a few months without anything to
show by way of achievement, and squandering the
goodwill he earned as a performing Chief Minister.
He politely declined the offer. Then the choice fell on
Deve Gowda, but his term was not very promising,
and he became the caroonist’s delight by frequently
falling asleep on the dias. Chandrababu however
was concentrating on consolidating his position in
the State, and a year later, suddenly, Sitaram Kesari
pulled the rug from under the coalition and Deve
Gowda had to resign.
The talks to find an alternative this time were held in

the Andhra Pradesh Bhavan at Delhi. Various names
430
were considered in consultations that stretched

beyond midnight. I.K.Gujral was there, and he was
asked to sleep in the Andhra Pradesh Bhavan for a
while, and he was woken up early in the morning to
be told he would be the next Prime Minister. Sitaram
Kesari was not a man to be taken for granted, and a
few months later, he struck again, demanding that
DMK Ministers should be dropped from the cabinet,
as they supported the LTTE that killed Rajiv
Gandhi!. Gujral resigned, and the nation went for
another general elections.
In 1998 March elections to Lok Sabha, the Telugu

Desam continued its seat adjustments with CPI, CPI
(M) and Janata Dal, while BJP contested in an
alliance with Lakshmi Parvathi’s Telugu Desam
Party. Since Vajpayee’s speech, when he resigned
after 13 days in office, endeared him to the middle
classes, the BJP-NTR TDP alliance in Andhra
Pradesh polled 20.59 percent vote, with BJP winning
four seats. This was BJP’s best performance in the
State when it contested virtually on its own, since the
431
support from NTR TDP was at best marginal. The
TDP and allies got 38.39 per cent vote and won 15
seats while Congress polled 38.46 per cent votes and
won 22 seats. The Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen
President, Salauddin Owaisi, was winning the
Hyderabad Lok Seat continuously from 1984
elections, with the implicit support of the
Congress (I).
As the results of the 1998 elections were coming,

Harkishen Singh Surjeet, the CPI (M) General
Secretary, told the TV channels that the United Front
would support the Congress (I) to keep the BJP out of
power, and Chandrababu objected to the statement,
saying as Convenor of UF, he was not aware of any
such decision and Surjit ought not to have made such
a statement. Chandrababu took the stand that
Telugu Desam will not support Congress (I) at any
cost. He explained that the Congress (I) destabilised
the United Front Government twice in 18 months, and
forced a general election on the nation, which
resulted in the BJP strengthening further, and the
432
DMK-Tamil Manila Congress alliance weakening in

Tamilnadu. How can the Congress (I) seek Telugu
Desam’s outside support?, he asked.
Then, he took the next step of supporting the BJP

from the outside, by agreeing to sponsor the TDP MP,
G.M.C.Balayogi, for the post of Speaker of Lok
Sabha. The United Front was planning to sponsor
P.A.Sangma, a one time Speaker, for the post again,
and they were unable to get Telugu Desam support.
The TDP decision was announced on the last day for
filing nominations. Decision was actually taken two
days earlier after Chandrababu spoke to L.K.Advani.
Balayogi was the first Scheduled Caste Speaker of
Lok Sabha, but he was on tour in East Godavari
when he was asked to rush to Delhi. As a standby,
K.Yerrun Naidu, another TDP MP, was asked to file
his nomination for the Speaker’s post, and Balayogi
reached the Lok Sabha Secretary’s office with only
three minutes to spare, and filed his nomination
papers. The United Front leaders were angry that
Chandrababu ditched them. Chandrababu resigned
433
from the UF at the very last minute. Though at that
time he talked of a new Front of regional parties,
with the National Conference of Jammu and
Kashmir, and the Assom Gana Parishad, it became
apparent that he found an alliance with BJP was
good. He however made it clear that Vajpayee should
not be committed to the BJP agenda, but should be
bound by the common minimum programme drafted
by the NDA Convenor, George Fernandes.
Chandrababu said that once Vajpayee agreed to
place in cold storage the issues of Ayodhya, the
common civil code, and the special treatment for
Jammu & Kashmir, the three core issues of interest to
BJP, he would not have any objection to supporting a
BJP led Government from outside. Chandrababu
asserted that the nation should cherish its ideals of
secularism and respect for the welfare of minorities,
and if there is any deviation from this principle, the
Telugu Desam would review its support. In 1998,
Chandrababu also spoke strongly against the foreign
born Sonia Gandhi becoming Congress President. He
said that “we are told that the Congress was found by
434
the friends of British in Calcutta. That party, in the

golden jubilee year of our Independence, is all set to
be led by a foreigner. The wheel has come a full
circle. I am simply appealing to the people to be
vigilant”.
After this intervention in Delhi politics in 1998,

Chandrababu has scaled down his role in national
politics, and is focussed on Andhra Pradesh. He has
a working relationship with leaders like Amar Singh,
MP of Samajwadi Party and Sharad Pawar of the
National Congress Party. When M.Karunanidhi was
arrested in Madras in 2000, he personally spoke on
the telephone with T.R.Balu, the DMK Minister in
Union Government, and conveyed his solidarity with
the DMK on the issue. He says he has no ambition to
become Prime Minister. “My goal is to develop
Andhra Pradesh, and make it a swarna (golden)
Andhra Pradesh. There is lot to do for the people of
my State. I am clear that we have abundent human
resource and sufficient talent. We have to move
forward making use of this resource. We should talk
435
about development most of the time, and of politics
only during election time. That way we will be able
to achieve progress”, he says.
Chandrababu’s theme is “development with a human

face”. He supports the “third way” of moving
forward, not capitalism, not communism, but a
middle path that would give priority to the uplift of
the poor while providing good governance.
436
Acknowledgements
This book speaks of many varied experiences of my

father, R J Rajendra Prasad, when he was a
journalist working with THE HINDU and earlier
with the Indian Express.
He always appreciated merit and commitment in

every single person who came to meet him. We are
confident that the readers will benefit from his
experiences. Feedback to rectify any errors, that
might have crept in inadvertently, is welcome.
Senior Journalist and Editor of Visalaandhra for

almost three decades, Shri Chakravarthula
Raghavachari has contributed the Foreword. Our
family appreciates his gesture and thanks him whole
heartedly.
Our family sincerely places on record its appreciation

to Shri Neelamegham and his entire team at Akshara
Advertising, Hyderabad - Subbu, Kesavan, Yagnesh,
Suresh, Hari, for design and printing of the book.
Senior Journalist and Resident Editor, Visalaandhra
437
and Secretary-General, Indian Journalists Union
(IJU), Shri K Sreenivas Reddy, a close friend my
father, has been very supportive in organizing the
Book Release function, and also for tie up with
Visalaandhra Publishing House for distribution.
Sincere thanks to you, sir.
Our family Seshadri (Seshu), Sudha, Nidhi, Renuka,

Soham, Sarada, Venugopal, Varun & Kumar all
contributed in their own way in bringing out this
book. Sincere appreciation and thanks for all your
support.
My seniors at work, Shri Sanjay Ramchandani,

Shri Nandanandan Reddy and Dr TRK Rao helped
me in completion of this project. Thank you, sirs.
Senior film maker Mr. Madhu Mahankali has helped

in making of the audio visual. Your work is
appreciated, sir.
For our online efforts, personal thanks to Mr Aravind

Babu and Shiv Priya, along with Samanvitha, based
438
at Dusseldorf. Hope www.datelineandhra.com

enables many more to access the book online.
Many thanks to Krishna Priya and Advika for

support for this project.
My mother, Smt Jayanthi has been patiently and

smilingly pushing me to complete the work assigned
by my father. She is the main source of strength and
motivation in completing this book.
This book is dedicated to my mother.
R S Prasad
Hyderabad – July, 2010
439

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In Lieu of Forward ................................................. 4

A journalist, by definition and temperament, is

Autobiographies of eminent journalists have been

safely on the path of perfection. M Chalapathi

R J Rajendra Prasad had a brilliant academic

When he shifted to State Capital in seventies, Andhra

when Prasad retired. One should read his reportage

Anybody who is interested in the political history of

My Days In Madras Journalism

I became a reporter by accident. While working as a

I was happy at the prospect because of better salary.

I reported at the Indian Express office three days

The two other new reporters, Ganapathi and

press notes in his handbag, and we three went to him,

It occurred to me that journalism was an easy affair;

the rule among Madras reporters those days, each

That evening, I was assigned to cover a meeting

Next day, I found that Ganapati Sarma had marked

have to keep a watch over him”. I followed Ranga

I was getting worried because I seem to miss stories,

On the fourth day of my Chepauk beat, I thought I

the canal project had come. The officer looked

I did not know whether the whole thing was “off” or

There was a distinct shift in the attitude of Ranga

Every day of the week, I was assigned to cover public

I settled down in my new profession quite uneasily,

Krishnamurthy Iyer, has given 100 pages to the

I was meeting more and more reporters of the other

is all there is to learn in journalism”, he used to say.

I got a good break one day when the Vice President,

Next day, there was a discussion in THE HINDU as

asked to appear for an interview, with Sri G.Kasturi,

AKV was a formidable personality, wearing a dhothi

THE HINDU reporters dreaded having to carry a

The Chief Reporters of all dailies invariably assigned

I got the “Corporation” beat. This consisted of

dead bodies brought to the mortuary, noting down

Around this time, the Tamil eveninger, Malai Murasu

Triplicane beach, which we would have noted at the

During night duties, I used to produce a paper called

If the gazette carried an announcement that the High

THE HINDU published a report one day: “Import of

Government has banned the import of minas oil into

The bottom line for meticulousness was laid by a

One of the assignments I dreaded was covering

there till their dinner time. People like Rajaji, High

Those days, reporters had a low status in society.

Then one day, I got a break quite unexpectedly. I

to the General Hospital mortuary, where there was a

It was a moving story, of an illiterate woman

of her. We located her in the evening, and took her

The story, titled “Quality of Mercy”, became a

I wrote a number of reports on Lakshmi getting gifts.

Lakshmi’s mother threatened to leave if she was not

Such stories are common place today, but way back in

My Coastal Andhra Assignment

In 1965, Sri Kasturi deputed me to the Press Institute

new Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Sastri, unfurling

My assignment at PII was part of training journalists

My first “Edit” page article appeared in THE