Senior Congress Leader D Srinivas Passes Away

Congress senior leader and former Rajya Sabha member Dharmapuri Srinivas passed away today.

He was 76.

Srinivas, fondly called DS, had been suffering from illness for some time, and breathed his last due to a heart attack at 3 AM at his residence in Hyderabad.

He is survived by his two sons. His elder son Sanjay has previously served as the Mayor of Nizamabad, and the second son Dharmapuri Arvind is currently a Member of the Lok Sabha from Nizamabad.

Born on September 27, 1948, in Velpur village of Nizamabad district, DS graduated from Nizam College, Hyderabad. In 1989, he contested for an Assembly seat for the first time from Nizamabad Urban constituency on behalf of the Congress, and won. After that he won as an MLA in the 1999 and the 2004 Assembly elections.

During the 2004 and 2009 elections he played a key role in the Congress coming to power in united Andhra Pradesh, as the PCC President. He also played an active role in the Congress entering an alliance with the TRS in 2004.

DS also served as a minister for two terms. From 1989 to 1994 he served as the minister for rural development and I&PR, and from 2004 to 2008 as the minister for higher education and urban land ceiling.

He was elected as an MLC in 2011, and leader of the party in the Telangana Legislative Council. In the 2014 elections he contested for the Nizamabad Rural Assembly seat but lost to the TRS candidate Bajireddy Govardhan.

After the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, he left the Congress and joined the BRS in 2015. He was rewarded by the BRS with a Rajya Sabha seat from 2016 and 2022.

DS left the BRS during the last Assembly elections and rejoined the Congress, as is known as a Sonia Gandhi loyalist. However, he has been staying away from politics for some time due to ill health.