Senior TDP leader Devineni Nehru passes away

Amaravati: Five time MLA Devineni Rajasekhar popularly known as Nehru died of a kidney problem on Monday in Hyderabad. His body is being taken to Vijayawada and funeral rites would be performed on Tuesday. He born on 22 June, 1954 at Neppalli in Kankipadu mandal in Krishna district and later he shifted his residence to Vijayawada.

He was long standing leader for the ruling TDP, since its founding year 1983 onwards. He was elected five times to the State Assembly from Kankipadu constituency one time from Vijayawada East.

Nehru was elected in 1983, 85, 89 and 94, four consecutive terms from TDP and was a minister under the then Chief Minister NT Ramarao’s cabinet.

During the turmoil in TDP in 1995, Nehru stood with NTR. After passing away of the NTR, Nehru joined the Congress. He contested in 1999 general elections for Kankipadu constituency from Congress party, but was defeated.

Again, in 2004, Nehru contested at



Kankipadu on Congress ticket and won in that general elections. With this winning, he got elected five times as MLA from the Kankipadu constituency. That was a record.

As the Kankipadu constituency was removed in the delimitation, he contested from shift Vijayawada East constituency but lost to PRP’s Yalamanchili Ravi with a thin margin of 190 votes.

Then in the 2014 general elections too, he lost the elections and then joined the ruling TDP.

Nehru was one of the strong leaders for both TDP and Congress during his entire political career of roughly 35 years.

Expressing shock over the sudden demise of Nehru, the TDP National President and AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu observed that it was huge loss to the party in the State in general and Krishna district in particular.

The followers and leaders from across the parties have been reaching Nehru’s house in Vijayawada.