Husband’s death leads Sunitha to become a 3-time MLA

Raptadu: Paritala Sunitha, MLA of Raptadu constituency, was once confined to the kitchen extending hospitality to scores of her husband Paritala Ravindra’s followers who flocked to his native village Venkatapuram. Her husband Ravindra was a victim of factional feuds. His father Paritala Sriramulu and his brother were killed when he was 17-years-old. Fearing for his life, he fled to his maternal uncle Kondaiah living in Uravakonda, where he got married to his uncle’s daughter Sunitha.

After Sunitha married Ravindra, they shifted to Venkatapuram village. Meanwhile, her husband Ravindra joined CPI (ML), the party leaders of which promised help to avenge his father and brother’s killing. Sunitha lived through turbulence all her years of marriage until the assassination of her husband Ravindra in 2005. She has two sons and a daughter. Paritala Sriram is her political heir.

Her husband was a three-time MLA and also served as home minister in the NTR Cabinet. He was a NTR loyalist to the core until his death in 2005. In 2009, Sunitha was elected MLA from Penukonda on TDP ticket and in 2014 too she became an MLA and also a minister in Naidu’s Cabinet.

In 2019, she did not contest in the elections to facilitate her son’s entry into politics and electoral fray. Her son Paritala Sriram contested from Raptadu constituency but lost to YSRCP candidate Topudurthi Prakash Reddy.

In 2024 elections, Sunitha contested from Raptadu and her son Paritala Sriram, who was in-charge of Dharmavaram constituency was expected to get the TDP ticket for Dharmavaram constituency but due to alliance compulsions, the constituency was given to the BJP, thereby Sriram missed the bus.

Sunitha, although plunged into politics from the kitchen, is not an ordinary woman. She lived through the ordeals of revengeful murders arising out of faction feuds and emerged as a tough woman and into an iron lady.

Many who thought that the Paritala clan would end with Ravindra’s death were disappointed. Sunitha rose like a phoenix from the grief of her husband’s ghastly end to grew into a leader determined to keep her husband’s flag flying. The followers of Ravindra stuck to her and protected her and hailed her as their leader.

Sunitha was elected MLA in 2009, 2014 and 2024. She lived up to the expectations of her followers as a ‘no-nonsense lady’. She also took care not to falling into the factionism trap which claimed her husband’s life.

She who has turned 60 looks forward for a smooth transition of her son Sriram into electoral politics.

She is a die-hard Chandrababu follower and a party loyalist.