Vangara/Husnabad (Telangana): Vangara stands out from the rest of Telangana’s 14,944 villages thanks to its most famous son.
It is the village of Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (1921-2004), better known as P.V. Narasimha Rao or PV — the fourth chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh (1971-73) and the first from the Telangana region.
PV went on to become the 10th prime minister of India in 1991, the first from South India, and led a minority government for a full term. He is remembered for initiating the economic reforms that paved the way for India to become the fifth-largest economy in the world.
On a Congress poll campaign vehicle circling Vangara’s streets — blaring songs beseeching voters to “choose maarpu (a change) this time” — a small image of PV’s face, alongside those of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi as well as Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, is tucked away in a corner of the banner that has Sonia Gandhi’s life-size cutout displayed most prominently.
In the Congress campaign elsewhere in Telangana for the 30 November polls, there’s been no sign of PV’s face or name.
The “call for change” resonates with some voters in Vangara, especially the women who gather at a cloth tailoring centre in the SC colony. They say they are considering an alternative (to the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi) this time. Their houses were built on the land donated by PV decades ago.
Vangara falls under the Husnabad assembly segment in central Telangana, northeast of Hyderabad, which has been a stronghold of the TRS, now BRS, for the last two polls. Before this, Husnabad was a Congress seat in 2009 (due to the YSR wave) and a Communist Party of India seat (with Congress support) in 2004.
Vangara voters, especially old-timers who adore PV, have apparently moved beyond what they call “some bitter memories”.
As he gazes at the posters on the vehicle and speaks to ThePrint, Lakshminarayana Nallagoni declares his allegiance to the Congress, “despite the way their dora (local lord/headman) PV was treated by the Congress in his advanced years”.
His neighbour Padma Reddy also says she favours the Congress.
Nallagoni and other PV admirers were referring to the alleged snubbing and sidelining of PV in the Congress once he stepped down as PM and party chief in 1996. Although he had been selected as the PM’s choice after Sonia Gandhi’s consent, he soon fell out of favour with 10 Janpath.
After his death, PV’s body was reportedly denied entry to the All India Congress Committee headquarters for supporters to pay tributes. His cremation was performed not in the national capital “as desired by PV” but in Hyderabad.
“Sonia Gandhi, the Congress government should have treated him in a better way. But our families are Congressi because of PV and what he did for the village. We could not shift our loyalty,” says 65-year-old Nallagoni, a farmer from the backward Goud community, who had seen PV several times during his Vangara visits, including one as the PM.
K.V. Santosh Babu, a retired bank manager in Karimnagar and relative of the family, who has compiled and written several books on PV, also feels that “the Congress denied PV his rightful, respectful place in party and history”.
“It also regrettably rejected his desire, put forward by his family after his death, to be cremated in New Delhi and for a Smriti-Sthal,” he tells ThePrint.
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PV’s legacy
PV remained a Congressman till his death and his eldest son, P.V. Ranga Rao, was the education minister in the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh. His second son, P.V. Rajeswara Rao, was a Congress MP from Secunderabad in the 1990s.
However, his family members have branched out in recent years.
One of his five daughters, Surabhi Vani Devi, is a BRS MLC, while a maternal grandson, N.V. Subhash, is a Telangana BJP spokesperson.
Prabhakar Rao, PV’s only surviving son — the youngest of three — says, “Whenever elections come, there is a talk, suggestion from friends in the Congress and other parties to contest ‘as I carry that great PV legacy.’ I have not given it serious thought.”
An entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist, Rao lives in Hyderabad, paying occasional visits to Vangara. He reportedly considered joining the BJP or the BRS last year, “upset” after Rahul Gandhi — when his Bharat Jodo Yatra passed through Hyderabad — paid homage to an Indira Gandhi statue but skipped PV’s.
Close contest
“Dissatisfied with the K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) administration and its unbeneficial schemes,” Golipalli Kranti Kumar, a 29-year-old MBA graduate, says he will vote for the Congress.
“True, KCR brought in Rythu Bandhu (an annual Rs 10,000 per acre farm input incentive) but look at the soaring costs. A bag of potassium, DAP, has more than doubled in price from the time Congress was in power here,” says Golipalli, who is into farming after a brief stint with a pharma firm near Hyderabad.
Speaking to ThePrint, Golipalli also mentions “the lack of government jobs” and says, “By the time our farm loan of Rs 68,000 was waived a few months back, I paid about Rs 50,000 as interest.”
“What is the use, then,” he exclaimed.
But for Ravi P., another local resident, and many others in the village, it is a close contest between the BRS and the Congress.
According to Vangara sarpanch Rajitha Reddy, some villagers might have turned pro-Congress again but she is confident that the BRS will attract the majority of the roughly 2,700 votes here.
After winning the politically unaffiliated panchayat polls in 2019, Reddy shifted to the ruling TRS, now BRS, as did a dozen Congress MLAs out of 19 elected in the 2018 assembly polls.
“Whatever development Vangara has seen was during PV’s tenures in high positions, and now under KCR. We have got roads worth about Rs 2.7 crore,” Reddy, who comes from a Congress family, tells ThePrint.
“While the Congress humiliated him when he was alive, the BRS accorded him respect and prominence even years after PV’s death,” she adds.
In 2021, PV’s birth centenary year, KCR demanded the Bharat Ratna “for the former PM who ushered in the economic reforms,”. He also asked for PV’s statue and portrait to be installed on the Parliament premises and for Hyderabad Central University to be named after him.
However, the PV Vignana Vedika Park and PV Vignana Kendra Museum — the foundation for which was laid in August 2021 by BRS ministers — taking shape on a sprawling expanse in Vangara, are still only halfway complete.
The Husnabad Congress candidate now is Ponnam Prabhakar, a former Karimnagar Lok Sabha MP (2009-14), while the BRS has fielded the two-time sitting MLA, Vodithela Sathish, a relative of PV.
Husnabad is part of the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency, won by TRS chief KCR in the 2004 general elections and the 2006 and 2008 bypolls.
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PV’s contribution and memories
Vangara villagers read out a list of what PV did for them both personally and as the CM and PM — roads, power, houses and other development initiatives.
During the 2021 PV centenary celebrations, Chief Minister KCR lauded PV for the land reforms he brought in as CM and for standing as a model for other states. “His family gave up 800 acres of their land holdings for the public benefit,” said Rao, while also crediting PV for introducing a residential education system like the Navodaya Vidyalayas.
“While running a minority government, PV brought in reforms that paved for the huge economic benefits — jobs, state budgets in lakhs of crores of rupees. Former PM Manmohan Singh respects PV like a fatherly figure, his guru,” added Rao, who served as a minister in UPA-1.
The Telangana government-run girls residential school stands on the 20 acres donated by PV and is named after his son Ranga Rao.
Dora is the Telangana term for the local lords of the bygone era, who are mostly from KCR’s Velama community. Several people here still refer to the Brahmin PV as dora garu, adding the respectful Telugu suffix.
There is also a demand to create a district named after PV, with Huzurabad as the headquarters.
But for now, his refurbished ancestral house in the village centre offers aficionados glimpses into the statesman’s life.
A white car used by PV when he was the external affairs minister is parked in the shade of a tree, while numerous memorabilia, including the typewriter and computer PV had operated, are stocked in a room inside waiting for a proper display space.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)