Many senior and prominent political leaders who met with untimely death in ghastly accidents were ironically associated with Telugu Desam Party either as members or former members of the party.
The latest to die in an accident was Shobha Nagireddy, sitting MLA of YSRCP, who lost her life in a road mishap near Allagadda late last night. As a matter of fact, the four time legislator from Allagadda was first elected as a TDP nominee in a by-election in 1997 and then re-elected from the same constituency in 1999. She was the first woman to be appointed as the Chairperson of State Road Transport Corporation during the TDP regime.
Another prominent Telugu Desam leader, who lost his life was the then Speaker of the Lok Sabha GMC Balayogi, who died in a helicopter mishap in March 2002. Then TDP’s Panchayat Raj Minister A. Madhava Reddy became a victim of Maoists landmine attack in March 2000. While he was returning to the city, his car was blasted by the landmines placed by the extremists near a culvert at Ghatkesar.
A senior leader and former MP of Telugu Desam Yerran Naidu too was killed in a road accident in November 2012 when he was returning to his native place in Srikakulam after attending a marriage function in Vizag. The car in which he was travelling rammed into a stationery petrol tanker parked on the highway.
Then Home Minister Indra Reddy, who died in a road accident in April 2004, was in TDP before switching over to Congress to become a minister. Interestingly his wife Sabitha Indra Reddy was made the first woman Home Minister by the then Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasehkar Reddy in his cabinet.
It may not be out of place to mention here that the heart-throb of the Telugu films, Soundarya, met with untimely death at a very young age when the helicopter in which she was on an election campaign trail on behalf of the BJP crashed. (NSS).
