Devineni Nehru is no more

​Amaravati/Hyderabad: Former Andhra Pradesh minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Devineni Nehru died of cardiac arrest on Monday. He was 65.

A key figure in Vijayawada politics, he suffered cardiac arrest at his house in Hyderabad. He is survived by a son and a daughter. Nehru, whose real name was Devineni Rajasekhar, was suffering from kidney-related ailments. His body was shifted to Vijayawada, where the last rites will be performed on Tuesday.

Popular as Nehru among his followers, he had joined the TDP when it was floated by thespian N T Rama Rao in the early 1982. He served as minister in NTR cabinet in 1994. He was elected to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly from Kankipadu in 1983 and retained the seat in 1985, 1989 and 1994.

He had been elected four times from the Telugu Desam once elected from the Congress. When N Chandrababu Naidu led a revolt against N T Rama Rao, Nehru was one of the few leaders to remain loyal to the party founder.

Nehru later joined the Congress but lost 1999 election. He, however, was again elected to the Assembly in 2004 but suffered defeats in 2009 and 2014. Last year, he re-joined the TDP along with his son Avinash.

Nehru's family had a long-running feud with their political rival Vangaveeti Ranga. Ranga, a leader of the Congress and belonging to the Kapu community, was murdered in 1988 when he was on hunger strike, sparking unprecedented violence in Vijayawada and other parts of Krishna district as well as neighbouring districts.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu condoled the death of Nehru and termed it as a personal loss to him and also a loss to the party.