YSRCP MLC Challa Ramakrishna Reddy Passes Away

Senior YSR Congress Party leader and MLC Challa Ramakrishna Reddy, who was undergoing treatment for Covid-19 at a private hospital in Hyderabad, today succumbed to the disease.

The 72-year-old, the second YSR Congress Party leader to get fatally infected by the novel coronavirus after MP Balli Durga Prasad Rao, is survived by his wife and son.

Reddy was admitted to the hospital on December 13 after testing positive for Covid-19 following the commencement of the winter session of the AP Legislative Council, and had been on ventilator ever since.

His last rites will reportedly be performed in his native place Uppalapadu village, in Kurnool district.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy expressed his shock and grief at the leader's demise, and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved family.

Ramakrishna Reddy had started his political career with the Congress, and had won the election for Kurnool's Panyam Assembly seat in 1983. Though he lost in the subsequent 1989 Assembly elections as well as the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, he tasted victory with two consecutive wins in the 1999 and 2004 elections, both from the Koilkuntla constituency.

In 2009 he contested for the Banaganapalle Assembly seat, but lost to a Praja Rajyam Party candidate, and then joined the TDP in 2014. During his stint in the party he was appointed as the State Civil Supplies Corporation Chairman. He then joined the YSRCP ahead of the 2019 Assembly elections, and had recently become an MLC.