Andhra Pradesh Congress leader Vidyadhara Rao passes away

Jul 21, 2013

Tags:

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) spokesman and former Minister Kotagiri Vidyadhara Rao died of cardiac arrest at his residence in his native West Godavari district today.
Rao suffered cardiac arrest when he was getting into his car at Eluru to embark on a campaign for the upcoming Gram Panchayat elections, family sources said. He was 66.
A key aide of Union Minister K Chiranjeevi, Rao began his political career in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and was elected to the Assembly from Chintalapudi constituency five times in a row from 1983.
He was a Minister in the cabinets of N T Rama Rao and Nara Chandrababu Naidu and held important portfolios like Agriculture and Major Industries. In 2008, Rao quit TDP and joined Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) floated by Chiranjeevi and remained the actor-turned- politician's key aide.
Rao lost the 2004 and 2009 Assembly elections. Upon the PRP's merger with the Congress, Rao was appointed the APCC spokesman. TDP President Chandrababu Naidu expressed grief over the passing away of his former party colleague.
Chiranjeevi expressed shock over the sudden demise of his aide. Several other leaders of the Congress, including Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and his deputy Damodar Rajanarasimha, also condoled Rao's death. Reddy spoke to the departed leader's family members and consoled them.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/244601" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-a717f8706002175bd1fcf75213ce9da0" value="form-a717f8706002175bd1fcf75213ce9da0" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80725920" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>