Bezawada Papi Reddy

Background

He was born on 5 January 1927 to Sri Bezawada Ramachandra Reddy & Smt Bujjamma as their eldest son at Kovur.

Education

He was married to Athipalli Pramila on 15 August 1948, he had three children Sashikala a daughter being the eldest child, Doctor Sudhir Kumar Reddy, who studied medicine in Rangaraya Medical college Kakinada and Ramesh Chandra Reddy a REC Warangal product being the two sons.

Career

After pursuing his schooling at Buchireddipalem he went on to complete his graduation at the Presidency college, Madras. Political He became a legislator in 1958 having been elected to the Associated Press Legislative counsel and served as MLC till 1962. Papi Reddy was elected to the Associated Press Legislative Assembly twice first in 1967-1972 as an independent and later in 1983 as a candidate of Telugu Desam party, both the times from the Alluru constituency.

He served on the board of the Agricultural University from 1969-1972

He was under intensive observation by the security agencies during the emergency in 1975-1977.

He served as a house committee member in Public Undertakings Committee, 1976-1977 & Public Accounts Committee, 1977-1978. His tenure in Rajya Sabha was during 1972-1978

On the insistence of NTR he accepted to become the Chairman of APIDC and served on the board 1983-1984.

He was the founding Vice President of the Telugu Desam party and during the Nadendla Bhaskara Rao rebellion, he had played a very effective role in keeping together all the Modern Language Association"s of TDP who were in favour of NTR in the camps held at Bangalore & Mysore, with his wit & humour. Social He has friends across party lines and some of the big industrialists were among his close friends.

He died on 7 January 2002 two days after he completed his 75th year.

Achievements

• Being the founder member of the party Telugu Desam Party went by his suggestion to select Cycle as it"s party symbol (which incidentally was his symbol, when he contested as an Independent), which continues to be the party symbol till date. In the year 1984 he contested from the Ongole Lok Sabha constituency as a member of TeluguDesam party and won against Puli Venkata Reddy of Incorporated and was a member of the 8th Lok Sabha till it was dissolved in 1989.

Politics

He started his career in politics at an young age by first becoming a member of the Student Congress from 1942-1947. He assisted his father Sri Ramachandra Reddy who was at that time active in Swatantra Party. He believed in the socialist policies as prescribed by Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan.

Membership

In the year 1972 after serving his first term as a Modern Language Association, He chose to go to the parliament and was elected as an Independent to be a member of the Rajya Sabha.

Connections

Friend:

Rama Rao