COVER STORY

YSR - A true mass leader

For Yeduguri Sandinti  Rajasekhara Reddy, YSR in  short, the end came while serving  the very people who had  reposed their faith in him by  voting him to power for a  record second consecutive term in May this  year.

Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's death in a chopper crash in Kurool district. Body brought from Nalanala Forest to Hyderabad CM camp
office on 3rd Sept thousands of people line the streets to pay their respects.
-Photo courtesy Snapsindia

A doctor by profession, YSR was very  close to the public pulse and carved a niche  for himself by taking up revolutionary public  welfare schemes, which had become a  model for other states in the country.      

Undoubtedly one of the most popular  leaders Andhra Pradesh ever produced,  YSR's death has not only created a vacuum  in the state politics but dealt a major blow  to the ruling Congress party. 

YSR at the inauguration of US Consulate in Hyderabad.

One of YSR's main achievements was  subduing the ultra-left Naxalite insurgency  in the state that had one time gripped 21 of  its 23 districts. In the process, the People's  War Group (PWG), once the dominant  Maoist group in India, was crushed beyond  recognition.    

  YSR, who turned 60 on July 8, came up  the hard way in his public life spanning  three decades. He emerged as one of the  strongest state leaders and also set new  records in the state's political history.

PM Manmohan Singh, Sonia & Rahul Gandhi consoling Chief Minister
Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy's wife.

YSR, whose popularity among masses  is often compared with that of the legendary  N.T. Rama Rao or NTR, proved his  charisma by winning the elections on the  plank of his political and administrative     credibility. 

Without promises of free colour televisions  and cash doles and without banking  on cine glamour, he proved why he was  more popular among masses.

Congress President, Sonia Gandhi with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy with the beneficiaries of Indiramma housing Scheme at Thumuluru village.

 Popular as a "people's leader" among  his followers, YSR was successful despite  facing a hostile poll campaign from both  the Telugu Desam Party-led four-party  Grand Alliance and the Praja Rajyam Party  of actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi. He  emerged as a real hero in the election battle  dominated by film stars.

Family members of co-pilot M S Reddy who was also killed in the helicopter crash which killed Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others

 Seen by political rivals as an aggressive  leader but adored by followers, YSR had  always been a winner. 

Elected to the state assembly for the  fifth time, YSR was also a four time Lok  Sabha member and he held the record of  never losing an election. 

The man who singularly spearheaded  the Congress campaign this year not only  retained power but also ensured that the  party gets 33 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats. 

When he took over as chief minister on  May 14, 2004, it was a dream came true for  YSR. The leader from the badlands of  Rayalaseema had come up the hard way. 

Born in a middle class family in  Pulivendula, a small town in Kadapa district,  on July 8, 1949, YSR made a modest  beginning. The eldest of five sons of Y.S.  Raja Reddy, a dynamic local leader, he  evinced interest in politics while studying  at the M.R. Medical College in Gulbarga in  Karnataka.

 After studying MBBS, YSR served as  medical officer at the Jammalamadugu  Mission Hospital for a brief period. In  1973, he established a 70-bed charitable  hospital.

 He entered active politics in 1978 and  was elected to the state assembly from  Pulivendula. He served as state minister  from 1980 to 1983 and retained the assembly  seat in 1983 even when NTR swept to  power with a mammoth victory.

 Sensing a potential leader in him, the  then prime minister Indira Gandhi appointed  YSR president of the state unit of  Congress when he was only 34 years. 

In 1989, he was elected to Lok Sabha  from Kadapa constituency and held the seat  till 1999, when he shifted again to state politics.  From 1998 to 2000 he was president  of the state Congress again. 

The year 2003 was a turning point in  his political career as he undertook a 64-  day ‘padayatra' or walkathon across the  state. Covering 1,500 km in the scorching  sun, he received petitions from people over  their numerous problems, mainly relating  to agriculture and unemployment. 

It was this ‘padyatra', which catapulted  YSR to power. His experiences during the  tour helped him shape up his policies after  assuming office, as he implemented free  power for farmers, waived off their loans,  introduced several welfare schemes like  pension for the aged, widows and handi- 
capped, housing for poor, Rs. 2 kg rice, a ‘Rajiv Arogyasri' or community health insurance scheme and a massive program to build irrigation projects.

Even his last visit to Chittoor district — which never materialized as the helicopter in which he was traveling crashed Wednesday morning in bad weather — was to launch another innovative mass contact program to know the people's problems.

Grief swept through India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh and much of the country with the tragic death of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, a dynamic politician who was killed when his helicopter exploded in the dark rain clouds over a deep forest a day earlier.

The ruling Congress' charismatic leader left home for Chittoor, 600 km away, for a mass contact program in a remote village Wednesday morning and never returned. On Thursday, almost 24 hours later, the mutilated remains of his body and four others who were with him on the Bell helicopter were found on a hilltop in the dense Nallamalla forests in Kurnool, about 200 km from here.

In one of the biggest searches mounted in the country, helicopters, remote sensing unmanned aerial vehicles and even barefoot villagers hunted in pouring rain for a whole day and night in the forested hinterland for the wreckage, which was finally located about 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool town.

The helicopter had broken into several parts and the bodies had been charred, a somber Home Minister P. Chidambaram said in Delhi while making the official pronouncement of the death of the 60-year-old leader.

Para commandos had to rappel down slippery slopes to retrieve the bodies, some who could only be recognized by the clothes they wore.

"It appears that because of inclement weather and to avoid cloud formation, the pilot had taken a detour from the preliminary inquiry… it appeared the chopper went and hit the cliff of a hillock," added state Chief Secretary P. Ramakant Reddy.

With YSR, who this May steered the Congress to a second stint in power, was his special secretary P. Subrahmanyam, his chief security officer A.S.C. Wesley and the two pilots of the ill-fated helicopter — Group Captain S.K. Bhatia and Captain M.S. Reddy.

There was shock, disbelief and tears in Andhra Pradesh as the late chief minister's body reached Hyderabad in the evening and crowds milled around trying to come to terms with the enormity of the tragedy.

"He is my god. I can't believe that he is no more," said an inconsolable Congress worker.

Many towns and villages in the state virtually shut down in grief as the news spread.

The silence that fell over the state was punctuated by muffled sobs and wails of hundreds of people who rushed to the popular chief minister's camp office, the state secretariat and the party headquarters.

In the rest of the country, viewers sat in front of their television sets watching the unfolding of the tragedy that had left the state and the ruling Congress in a political vacuum.

The news stunned the Congress that lost the leader who had helped strengthen its foothold in the vital south.

Calling YSR an "ideal chief minister who was a role model for other states", the prime minister said he had lost "a valued colleague on whom I depended for support and ideas."

A deeply moved Sonia Gandhi said it "is a huge loss for the party, it is a loss for all of us, his colleagues, for the state of Andhra Pradesh and the country".

Tributes poured in from all quarters, including from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that also lowered its flags in mourning.

Finance Minister K. Rosaiah has taken over as caretaker chief minister.

YSR is survived by his wife Vijayalaxmi, MP son Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and daughter Sharmila.

[ BY LAVANYA GARIKINA ]