HYDERABAD: Freedom fighter and veteran of Telangana movement Konda Lakshman, popularly known as ‘Bapuji’, passed away on Friday morning at his residence at the age of 97. Bapuji was hale and hearty till the other day and actively participated in the installation ceremony of the famous Khairatabad Ganesha idol on Wednesday. He died when arrangements were afoot for his next birthday on September 27.
Konda Lakshman was the first minister to quit the Kasu Brahmananda Reddy cabinet for the Telangana cause. Till then the Telangana movement was being run by the students of Osmania University and some young intellectuals of Hyderabad. Alleging that the Gentleman’s Agreement of 1956 was violated, Bapuji, who was information and labour minister, had quit the cabinet to join the nascent Telangana Praja Samithi (TPS).
It was his entry that transformed the hitherto student and youth movement into a political struggle for a separate state. Earlier, ‘Bapuji’ brought about a split in the AP Congress by forming the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee with the support of dozens of MLAs from the region. He was Deputy Speaker for some time. Bapuji was born in Wankidi village in Adilabad district in 1915 into a weaver’s family, and was an arch rival of another T-veteran and TPS president Marri Channa Reddy. Then CM Brahmananda Reddy used to say that he was confident that the Telangana movement would not move forward as long as Channa Reddy and Bapuji were at the helm of affairs. Their presence polarised the movement ideologically into Reddys and non-Reddys.
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