Hyderabad, April 22 (IANS) Former Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh Nadendla Bhaskar Rao passed away here on Wednesday, following prolonged illness. He was 90.

He breathed his last at a private hospital, where he was admitted a month ago due to age-related ailments.

Bhaskar Rao is survived by his son, Nadendla Manohar, who is the Civil Supplies Minister in the Cabinet of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

A former Speaker of the Assembly in united Andhra Pradesh, Manohar, is currently a key leader of Jana Sena Party.

A seasoned politician and administrator, Bhaskar Rao was elected to the Assembly on the Congress party ticket in 1978. He served as the Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh for a month in 1984.

Hailing from the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, he was a law graduate from Osmania University. He started his political career with Congress and was elected to the Assembly from Vijayawada East in 1978.

Bhaskar Rao was the co-founder of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), along with N. T. Rama Rao (NTR). He was the second in command in TDP when popular film actor NTR launched the party in 1982.

Re-elected to the Assembly from Vemuru on the TDP ticket in 1983, he was the Finance Minister in the NTR-led TDP government. When NTR had gone to the United States for surgery, Bhaskar Rao, with the help of a section of TDP MLAs and the Congress, led a revolt and became Chief Minister on August 16, 1984.

The revolt had triggered massive political turmoil in the state, and exactly a month later, Bhaskar Rao had to resign. The nationwide save democracy movement by NTR had forced the Congress government at the Centre to reinstate him as the Chief Minister.

Bhaskar Rao quit the TDP and launched the Democratic Telugu Desam Party, which proved short-lived. He later returned to Congress and was re-elected to the Assembly from Tenali in 1989. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Khammam in 1998.

He also served as the minister in the cabinets of Marri Chenna Reddy and K. Anjaiah.

After several decades of political silence, Bhaskar Rao joined the BJP in 2019.

The last rites will be performed at Panjagutta crematorium on Thursday.

Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu expressed grief over the passing away of Nadendla Bhaskara Rao. He telephoned Bhaskara Rao’s son, Manohar, to offer his condolences.

The Chief Minister conveyed his sympathies to Manohar and his family members and prayed for the departed soul to rest in peace.

Deputy Chief Minister and Jana Sena Party President Pawan Kalyan has also condoled the demise of Bhaskar Rao.

He noted that Bhaskara Rao had been active in public life since the 1970s. His knowledge and expertise, both as a lawyer and as a politician, were invaluable. He served the public with distinction, having been elected as an MLA from the Vijayawada East and Vemuru constituencies, and as an MP from Khammam.

Pawan Kalyan prayed that Manohar, son of Bhaskar Rao and the Chairman of the Jana Sena Party’s Political Affairs Committee, find the strength to quickly recover from the pain of this paternal loss.

–IANS

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