Vijayawada political story-5

Two buses of people with a lot of weapons, the biggest weapon being ‘hatred’ and explosives together killed a person. Life is like a bicycle, to keep your balance, you need to move on. So the city moved on! But at the cost of a few thousands of crores!

My previous posts say that the gang wars in Vijayawada started with Chalasani Venkatarathnam’s murder, then on Radha was the leader of the rowdy gang that included even Devineni brothers! Radha lost his life to his earlier enemies. Read the earlier parts to have a glimpse of what I wrote earlier. part3, part2, part1, preview

After Radha’s death, Ranga was the leader of the gang. He was known for his atrocious ways of ‘collections’ from the public. The Devineni Brothers wanted their dominance, it is often said that Devineni brothers aided Radha’s murder as well.  But still no proof exists. So, initially they worked in unison to rob the common man. When they had differences amongst themselves they (Devinenis) split up with the Ranga-Gang and formed their own student organization ‘USO’ (United students organization) to compete with Radha’s UI (United Independents) which was controlled together by Ranga + Nehru gang earlier. The effect was Devineni Gandhi’s wicket. Devineni ChandraShekar(Gandhi),Nehru’s elder brother was hacked to death, Ranga being the prime suspect. Ranga grew into a state leader gradually. The Charisma of NTR changed the equations. His advent gave the Devineni Brothers enormous power! Look more about NTR here.

Both the Gangs kept loosing wickets, you know as it is said kings die rarely, the foot soldiers die daily. Nehru became the MLA of Kankipadu, Radha being in and out of jail in the aftermath of 1983 elections.

 

Devineni Murali was very instrumental in the student politics for the Devineni brothers. With Nadendla Bhaskar Rao playing a spoil sport while NTR was away for a surgery, there were elections in 1985 and Ranga managed to be an MLA. The fire of castism was alive for a long long time and exploded in the form of Devineni murali’s death (remember the chase of actor chinna in RGV’s 'Siva' movie? They say, Murali was chased down similarly! RGV mimicked it well!). Nehru-Gang couldn’t digest the death of Murali. They were looking for an opportunity to take a revenge.  It is said that Ranga literally hid himself for a few days after Murali’s murder.

Once, a girl from Kankipadu region came to Ranga for some help. Ranga knew that if he goes there without weapons it would be like entering a hungry lion’s den. If he goes with weapons he’d be arrested! Somehow he felt like starting without weapons and was stopped by the police for checking. He took that as an insult and started a hunger strike at Ragaviah park, after all Mahatma Gandhi left this one thing to everyone in need. He said that the NTR government mistreated him and also accused that the government reduced security to him when his life was under threat. The opportunity was wide open!!!

Read these couple of articles,

1.The murder that shook Andhra Pradesh

2.Murder and Mayhem

found them really after some hardcore googling ! People don’t believe me! huh? What to do?

 So as the articles say busses full of rowdies came and attacked the spot where the hunger strike is going. Everything was well set for the murder. Read the articles again, you will understand! The early hours of Decemeber 26 saw the downfall of one of the Gangstars who gave nothing to the city but claims to be the tiger of bezawada. NTR turned on a blind eye to all that was going on! The remains of ranga gang had to flee for a while. In bits and pieces the rowdies were gradually filtered off. Nehru remained the sole prince of Vijayawada, but in today’s world nothing can be so dangerous and eclipsed. Truth can only be painted but can’t be tainted. The second grade rowdies under Ranga-Nehru became the big guns now!

That was the story of the bloody stains left over by those rowdy gangs on the city. They were CASTE wars. Two communities fought for dominance! The impression that ‘rowdy-ism is a synonym to Vijayawada’ is the biggest misconception among the various spheres of people. But still, it has its share of blood-shed that caused irreparable damage, a damage that would make certain communities of people natural enemies. The Big-Guns of both these communities have rather made the life difficult for a common man in some cases in their quest for supremacy. These communities should learn to understand the real picture of their leaders and the implications on the society it had earlier and the implications it still continues to have even today!