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Journalism of Courage
Late on March 14, 2019, senior YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) leader Y S Vivekananda Reddy returned to his bungalow in Pulivendula in Andhra Pradesh’s Kadapa district after meeting cadres at Mydukuru. The Assembly and Lok Sabha elections were less than a month away, and Vivekananda, younger brother of the late Y S Rajshekhar (YSR) Reddy, had been entrusted by his nephew and party chief Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy with key responsibilities.
Early next morning, Vivekananda was found dead – sprawled on the floor of the bathroom.
The murder didn’t dent Jagan’s rising graph – he ended up with 151 seats and a clear majority that came on the back of a gruelling padyatra that he had undertaken across the state. Yet, the murder sent shockwaves through the state.
Now, four years later, the arrest of YSR’s cousin Y S Bhaskar Reddy in the murder case has cast the spotlight on the power machinations within the YSR family – one of the most powerful political dynasties in Andhra Pradesh.
Since the 1980s, the Yeduguri Sandinti family has had an unchallenged run in their home turf of Pulivendula, and much of Kadapa district.
YSR’s father Y S Raja Reddy, who hailed from a devout Christian middle-class family, started off as a manager and then a partner of a barytes mine in Mangampet, before he allegedly became a powerful faction leader of the local Reddy community at the mines.
The move ensured his transition into politics and Raja Reddy was elected sarpanch of Pulivendula gram panchayat two times.
The entry of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which was founded in 1982, heightened the rivalry and tensions between various factions vying for control of mines and political space in Pulivendula and across Kadapa district.
Despite his growing clout, such was the rivalry among various mine factions that Raja Reddy lost the sarpanch election two times to rival faction leaders. On May 23, 1998, he was killed in a crude bomb attack allegedly over barite mining rights in Obulavaripalli.
Raja Reddy’s tryst with politics had already inspired YSR, his eldest son and a doctor by training, to join the Congress in 1978. “Dr YSR”, as he came to be known, was made a minister (rural development) in the state Congress Cabinet in 1980, before becoming excise minister in 1982 and education minister in 1983.
YSR went on to win from Pulivendula even at the height of the TDP wave – in 1983 and 1985 – before becoming an MP for four terms (from 1989 to 1998) from Kadapa constituency. He was also appointed president of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC).
A combination of their politics and control over the area’s mines – all over Kadapa district but especially in Obulavaripalli and Mangampet – ensured that the YS family emerged as one of the most powerful political families in the state.
Kadapa TDP MLC B Ramagopal Reddy, who was a student then, recalls how the YS family’s fortunes changed after Raja Reddy took over the mine. “Raja Reddy worked at the mine as a supervisor and manager but became a partner at the mine owned by V Narasiah. Raja Reddy and his followers also took over a number of mines operating in the region. It was a time of violent confrontations between various mine factions. While Raja Reddy consolidated the mining business, YSR’s stature in local politics grew by leaps and bounds,” he said.
Their rising clout brought with it tensions within the family too. While Raja Reddy had five sons, the political limelight stayed firmly on YSR for at least two decades. It was only when YSR moved to the Lok Sabha, after being elected from Kadapa parliamentary constituency, that Vivekananda got a chance to contest from Pulivendula in 1989.
After working behind the scenes for years, Vivekananda was finally in control of the family turf of Pulivendula. The soft-spoken, bespectacled Vivekananada was, however, pragmatic enough to know that real power lay in the hands of elder brother YSR.
Meanwhile, another wing of the YS family — Raja Reddy’s brother’s son Bhaskar Reddy and son Avinash Reddy — attempted to make its mark.
A former zilla parishad member of Pulivendula, Bhaskar Reddy was named as an accused in the murder of TDP leader P Umamaheshwar Reddy, who allegedly hacked Y S Raja Reddy (YSR’s father) to death in May 1998.
In 2004, Bhaskar Reddy was acquitted in the murder case, following which he emerged as a key player in Pulivendula politics, but remained in the shadow of YSR and his brother Vivekananda.
However, by 2009, with Jagan emerging as the natural heir by wading into politics and winning from Kadapa parliamentary seat, Bhaskar’s ambitions took a backseat.
But the Y S family was to undergo a big churn.
YSR died in a chopper crash in September 2009, after which his wife and Jagan’s mother Y S Vijayalakshmi won from Pulivendula in the 2010 bypoll. With Jagan sidelined after YSR’s death, many of the family’s supporters openly sided with him, but not Vivekananda. When Jagan went on to quit the Congress and launched the YSRCP in March 2011, Vivekananda revolted and refused to join the new party. He stayed on with the Congress, which rewarded him by making him a Member of the Legislative Council in September 2009 and later, Minister for Agriculture in the Kiran Kumar Reddy Government, the last government of undivided AP.
An angry Jagan and Vijayalakshmi banished Vivekananda from the YSR family estate and their properties in Pulivendula and tightened their grip on their turf.
In the December 2011 Assembly by-polls – necessitated after Vijayalakshmi in August 2011 resigned along with 16 other Congress MLAs sympathetic to YSR – Vivekananda was the Congress candidate against his sister-in-law. He lost to his sister-in-law by over 80,000 votes, after which he joined nephew Jagan.
With Jagan and his uncle Vivekananda setting aside their differences and agreeing to work together, all was well in the YS household. Or so it seemed.
Ahead of the 2019 elections, as Bhaskar Reddy thrust his son Avinash Reddy into politics and sought to make him in-charge of Kadapa, Jagan, who was poised for a landslide win, obliged and nominated his cousin Avinash from Kadapa for the second time. Avinash had won from the seat in the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections too, but had mostly stayed in the background. His father, say party sources, was keen that Avinash was seen as the party’s man in the region.
Though, as expected, Avinash won the seat again in 2019, it was Vivekananda who had Jagan’s ear – something Bhaskar Reddy allegedly grudged as he was unable to appoint his supporters to key positions in local bodies. This triggered a covert war for political dominance between the two leaders – and, according to the CBI probe, allegedly culminated in Vivekananda’s murder on March 14, 2019.
Police said Vivekananda’s personal assistant M Krishna Reddy found him lying dead in the bathroom of his home on the morning of March 15. Vivekananda was alone at home as his wife Sowbhagya was visiting their daughter Sunitha, a doctor practising with a leading hospital in Hyderabad.
The CBI took over the case from the CID in March 2020 after Sowbhagya and Sunitha repeatedly raised questions about the investigation in the Vivekananda case and alleged that the real accused were being shielded.
In its chargesheet filed on October 26, 2021 in the court of Judicial Magistrate First Class at Pulivendula, the CBI stated that his body was found in a pool of blood. A post-mortem report revealed seven injuries on his head, right hand and thighs.
The CBI has charged four persons, all employees of Vivekananda, for allegedly attacking him with an axe and leaving him to die on the bathroom floor.
What added to the mystery surrounding Vivekananda’s death is the death of an accused-turned-witness and the suicide of a suspect.
In June 2022, K Gangadhara Reddy, a real estate dealer and a Vivekananda aide, a key suspect identified by the SIT and who later agreed to become a witness in the murder case, died at his home in Vijayawada. He was a CBI witness too. Inquest reports indicated that he died in his sleep of diabetic complications and other health issues.
Earlier, in September 2019, another suspect, S Srinivasulu Reddy from Kadapa, died by suicide after being questioned several times, first by the SIT and later by the CBI.
All through, Vivekananda’s wife Sowbhagya and daughter Sunitha kept up the pressure, raising doubts over the probe and alleging that the government was trying to scuttle it.
For Jagan, this was political powderkeg – a murder in the family, squabbling relatives and an Opposition snapping at his heels.
The TDP has accused the CM of being involved in the plot to eliminate Vivekananda Reddy, with party chief N Chandrababu Naidu demanding Jagan’s resignation. The Congress demanded a CBI inquiry.
The political row intensified after the Supreme Court last November transferred the trial in the murder case from an Andhra Pradesh court to a special CBI court in Hyderabad in Telangana.
On March 27 this year, the SC, while hearing the petition moved by the wife of one of the accused in the case, directed the CBI to change the investigation officer in the murder case, saying the investigation was dragging for too long.
In their petition seeking a transfer of the case to the CBI court in Hyderabad, Vivekananda’s wife Sowbhagya and daughter Sunitha contended that a fair trial may not be possible in AP and that influential people were attempting to scuttle the trial.
Sunitha, who on April 17 requested the Telangana High Court to implead in Avinash Reddy’s anticipatory bail petition, told The Indian Express that she and her mother were suspicious from Day 1. “Nothing added up. It did not take long for us to realise that there was a massive cover-up. Initially we were told he died of a heart attack but a post-mortem report revealed he had stab injuries all over his body. The SIT investigation was flawed as they could not identify the real culprits. It was when two witnesses died that we appealed to the courts for a CBI investigation, and for the trial to be moved out of the state,” she said.
The CBI, after investigating for over six months, filed the first chargesheet in the murder case on October 26, 2021 and a supplementary chargesheet on January 31, 2022, accusing four persons of the murder. The two chargesheets did not name Bhaskar Reddy as accused but mentioned his alleged involvement in the conspiracy.
According to the CBI, Avinash and his father wanted their aide D Siva Sankar to be the MLC candidate from Kadapa in 2017 but were disappointed when Jagan fielded uncle Vivekananda. However, as Vivekananda lost the election, fingers began pointing to the father-son duo.
After his loss, Vivekananda allegedly scolded his aide Yerra Gangi Reddy, who is one of the accused in the murder case, and blamed Bhaskar and Avinash for his loss.
In December 2018, ahead of the 2019 elections, Vivekananda is said to have proposed to Jagan that he should field either his sister Sharmila or mother Vijayalakshmi from the Kadapa and deny sitting MP Avinash Reddy the ticket. This riled the father-son duo who allegedly hatched a conspiracy to eliminate Vivekananda, said the CBI.
According to the investigation agency, the father-son duo allegedly hired Vivekananda’s personal staff, including Gangi Reddy, G Uma Sankar Reddy, Shaik Dastahgiri, and Y Sunil Yadav,who allegedly kept a watch on his movements and reported them to Avinash Reddy. The CBI also said that Bhaskar Reddy and son allegedly promised to pay the accused a sum of Rs 40 crore and that everyone involved in the plot would receive Rs 5 crore each.
“Investigation has revealed that the deceased was murdered at his residence at Bhakarapuram, Pulivendula, on the intervening night of March 14-15, by Gangi Reddy, Sunil Yadav, Shaik Dastahgiri, and G Uma Sankar Reddy. The friendly entry into the house was facilitated by Gangi Reddy, who had already managed to access the house,’’ reads the CBI chargesheet.
According to the CBI chargesheet, all four had a personal grudge against Vivekananda.
According to the CBI chargesheet, Gangi Reddy and Sunil Yadav had helped Vivekananda settle a disputed land deal at Bengaluru and wanted a share of the proceeds that Vivekananda would have allegedly got, but the YSRCP leader refused to part with the money.
The CBI said another of the accused, Uma Sankar, and his brother Jagdeeshwar Reddy told the agency that Vivekananda did not allow them to contest for the post of sarpanch in Pulivendula.
Dasahgiri allegedly said he held a grudge because Vivekananda fired him as his driver and allegedly scolded him for his illicit affairs.
After entering the house and ambushing Vivekananda, Gangi Reddy allegedly picked up a fight with Vivekananda. He and the other accused allegedly attacked Vivekananda with an axe and, according to the CBI chargesheet, forced him to write a note that his driver Prasad attacked him. They then allegedly dragged him to the bathroom, rained blows on him and left him in a pool of blood.
While the other three escaped from the back door, Gangi Reddy allegedly came out of the front door and threatened watchman B Raganna of dire consequences. In its probe, the CBI established Uma Sankar’s presence near the crime scene as he was seen running in CCTV footage procured from a camera at a tyre shop, a few metres from Vivekananda’s house.
Sunil Yadav’s presence was established through his GPS coordinates.
On Bhaskar and Avinash Reddy’s role, the CBI stated that they were together in hatching the conspiracy to eliminate Vivekananda. The CBI chargesheet states that immediately after Vivekananda’s body was discovered, Avinash reached his residence and told mediapersons that he died of a heart attack.
The CBI first questioned Avinash and Bhaskara Reddy on February 23 and 24. The CBI has named 250 persons as witnesses in the case and attached their statements.
After his father’s arrest, Avinash opened a new front in the family saga when he spoke about Vivekananda’s remarriage and how that had caused tensions with his wife, daughter and son-in-law.
As the case progresses and the dragnet tightens around members of the YS family, the ruling YSRCP has been putting up a brave face. In a statement issued after Bhaskar Reddy’s arrest, Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, YSRCP General Secretary and Advisor to Government (Public Affairs), said, “Except taking statements of Bhaskar Reddy and Avinash Reddy, the CBI has not done any investigation. Bhaskar Reddy’s arrest looks motivated as the CBI does not have any proof that he was involved in the case. The media is conducting the trial. The CBI is just trying to show that is making some progress in the case by arresting Bhaskar Reddy.”
Yet, with a year to go for the elections, party sources admit that the events of the last few years – the murder of a key leader and the arrest of another – are likely to take a toll on the YS family.
