Congress leader P Janardhan Reddy dead

Senior Congress leader and five-term legislator P Janardhan Reddy died of a massive heart attack on Friday morning. He was 60.

Janardhan Reddy, who was popularly known as PJR, was on his way from his residence at Gaganmahal to Greater Hyderabad Congress Committee meeting at Jewel Gardens in Secunderabad when he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed in his car. His supporters immediately rushed him to the nearby Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences where he breathed his last.

Doctors' attempts to revive him proved futile. He is survived by his wife Sulochana, three daughters and a son.

Elected to the Andhtra Pradesh assembly for five terms (1978, 1985, 1989, 1994 and 2004) from Khairatabad constituency in Hyderabad, PJR was Congress Legislature Party leader during 1994-99 when he led the 26-member Congress group in the assembly and played an effective Leader of Opposition during the regimes of N T Rama Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu.

Reddy had served as a minister in the previous Congress regimes during 1980s and 1990s and harboured ambitions of leading the Congress government in the state. However, he had turned a dissident when he was not even accommodated in the cabinet by Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy after the Congress regained power in May 2004.

Since then, he had been opposing the various acts of omission and commission of Rajasekhar Reddy regime. He had enlisted the support of another Congress legislator Marri Shashidhar Reddy, younger son of former Chief Minister Marri Channa Reddy, in his fight against YSR. Both PJR and Shashidhar Reddy came to be known as 'Hyderabad brothers.'

PJR had stoutly opposed Pothireddypadu head regulator project, alleging that this project was meant to divert Krishna waters to Rayalaseema from Telangana region. He had also demanded a deputy chief minister's post for a leader from Telangana in the present cabinet. He was a known supporter of separate statehood for Telangana. He had led many popular agitations in the city against Telugu Desam governments of NTR and Chandrababu Naidu.
 
In July this year, PJR had a bitter row with the chief minister following the road rage incident when his son P Vishnuvardhan Reddy and his son-in-law were allegedly involved in assaulting YSR's younger brother Y S Ravindranath Reddy and his nephew Y S Sumadhar Reddy in Jubilee Hills area.

An attempt-to-murder case was booked against PJR's son but the charge was subsequently quashed by the high court.

Starting his career as a trade union leader in 1967, PJR was first elected to the assembly in 1978. He became the labour minister in the ministry headed by his mentor T Anjaiah in 1980. He had been a known loyalist of Gandhi family-Indira Gandhi, Sanjay, Rajiv and now Sonia Gandhi. He was suspended from the party on a couple of occasions by running a 'dissident campaign' against the state Congress leadership or chief ministers.

He lost, only twice, to Telugu Desam rivals in the 1983 and 1999 assembly elections.