Veteran Communist leader and five-time-MLA Chennamaneni Rajeswara Rao died on Monday at a hospital in Hyderabad, following illness. He was 93 and is survived by three daughters and a son Ch. Ramesh, who is the TRS MLA from Vemulawada constituency in Karimnagar district. Rajeswara Rao's brother Ch. Vidyasagar Rao is the Governor of Maharashtra.
Mr. Rao served the Communist Party of India for four decades since his student days and was elected as its MLA four times from Sircilla, now renamed as Vemulawada. He participated in the Telangana armed struggle against the tyranny of Nizam's rule and went underground for sometime.
He was the president of the Telangana Freedom Fighters Association and the president of the farmers' wing of CPI. He quit the CPI as the chairman of its legislature party in 1999 and joined the Telugu Desam, the party which he described as the closest to his heart. He, however, lost the Assembly election on a TDP ticket in 1999 and went on to represent the party in the Assembly in the next term. He distanced himself from active politics after 2009 when his son Ramesh, a professor in agricultural economics at a German university, was elected.
The funeral will take place on Tuesday.
