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Of the sordid theatre of faction killings in Rayalaseema region

Tirupati: The killing of YSRC leader YS Vivekananda Reddy has once again brought to fore the sordid theatre of killings in faction wars in the backward Rayalaseema region. Though the reason behind the sensational murder is yet to come out, there are murmurs that faction feud could be a factor.

With elections round the corner, the murder has gained political significance with both the ruling TDP and opposition YSRC blaming each other.

The region has had a history of factional feuds, particularly during elections. Most such killings are often defined by caste and political domination, with some or other links to wealthy landlords and powerful political families.

The spectre of faction violence in the Rayalaseema districts of Kurnool, Kadapa, Anantapur and Chittoor has its roots in medieval history, right from the days of the Vijayanagar empire. In the modern-day world, only a thin line separates faction feuds from politics in the four Rayalaseema districts.

Interestingly, the warring factions got divided on party lines since the formation of the TDP by NTR in 1982. While earlier rivalries were mostly confined to leaders with Congress affiliations — it was the only dominant political party in the undivided state at the time — the advent of the TDP gave a boost to the faction wars. They now branched out to other money-making operations like tenders, contracts, mining and transport.

While the police did their best to exterminate factions and bring a halt to the mindless bloodshed, stray incidents of faction clashes and murders, particularly during election season, keep happening. Time will tell whether Viveka’s murder too was another extention of the faction wars.

MURDERS MOST FOUL

YS Raja Reddy, father of former chief minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy, was killed in a bomb attack on May 23, 1998, while he was returning to his native Pulivendula. A rival group hurled crude bombs at Raja Reddy near a bus stand at Vemula village, killing him and one of his followers on the spot. The attack was allegedly masterminded by Umamaheswara Reddy, brother of Pulivendula marketing committee chairman Parthasarathy Reddy, an arch-rival of the ‘YSR’ group in the district.

Former minister Paritala Ravindra was murdered at TDP office in broad daylight on January 24, 2005. The plot was hatched by his rival Gangula Suryanarayana Reddy, alias Maddelacheruvu Suri, who was already in jail in connection with the Jubilee Hills bomb blast case of 1997 in which 26 people were killed. Ravi had survived that attack. Even as the trial in the Paritala Ravi murder case was nearing completion, prime accused Suryanarayana Reddy was shot dead in a moving car by his own aide Bhanu Kiran in Hyderabad on January 4, 2011. With both Suri and Paritala Ravi dead, the curtains came down temporarily on the nearly four-decades long feud between the families of Gangula and Paritala.

In 2008, Moddu Seenu, another accused in the Paritala Ravi murder case, was killed by an undertrial prisoner inside Anantapur district jail. Om Prakash of Madanapalle, who was already a prime accused in three murder cases, smothered Suri’s sharp-shooter using a dumbbell and cement blocks.

Anantapur faction politics attracted national attention when director Ram Gopal Varma released the movie ‘Rakhta Charitra’, a multi-lingual political thriller based on the lives of Paritala Ravi and Maddelacheruvu Suri, in two parts in 2010.

On November 17, 2015, in what could be called the first sensational political murder in the state, Chittoor mayor Katari Anuradha and her husband Katari Mohan were gunned down by a group of assailants right inside the municipal corporation office.

On May 21, 2017, YSR Congress’ Pattikonda constituency in-charge Kangati Lakshmi Narayana Reddy and his aide Sambasivudu were killed by a rival faction at Ramakrishnapuram in Krishnagiri mandal of Kurnool district.

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