Andhra Pradesh war cry: Give us tickets or we kill selves

HYDERABAD: If you thought they killed themselves only for Telangana, or out of shock at YS Rajasekhara Reddy's sudden death, you are mistaken. Elections are round the corner and denial of tickets is a new reason to threaten or attempt death-by-suicide in AP.


In the last 12 years, over 800 people, many among them students, set themselves on fire, drank pesticide or hanged themselves for a separate state. In the months after YSR's died in a 2009 chopper crash, more than 120 people died of shock or committed suicide. A separate Telangana state has been announced. YSR's son Jaganmohan Reddy is hoping to make it big in politics. But suicide attempts haven't stopped. Only the reasons are different.

TRS chief K Chandrasekhara Rao is worried. The mother of a youngster who committed suicide during the statehood stir is now threatening to set herself ablaze if she doesn't get the party ticket for the assembly polls from a Nalgonda seat.

K Srikanth Chary of Nalgonda had a physiotherapy degree and set himself ablaze in Hyderabad's L B Nagar crossroads for the Telangana cause. On December 3, 2009, he died. Chary's mother is adamant. She wants the TRS ticket to the Palakurthi seat. "If I am denied, I too will commit selfimmolation where my son set himself ablaze," Shankaramma recently told KCR. The TRS leader tried to pacify her and assured that she'd be made an MLC. But she wasn't convinced.

In Warangal, considered a Telangana hotbed, tempers are rising. On March 18, TRS worker Kondala Premasagar poured kerosene on his body and tried to set himself ablaze. Premsagar's demand: TRS leader A Vidyasagar Rao be given the Warangal West ticket.

Premsagar said he didn't want former minister Konda Surekha and husband Konda Murali admitted into the party. A 26-year-old TRS worker Neeredi Sai Kumar drank pesticide after he learnt his leader N Surendar wasn't getting the TRS ticket from Kamareddy in Nizamabad. In the same Kamareddy, BJP worker Naresh who wants that his mother be given a party ticket attempted suicide but he was saved. The TDP too is in a fix. Anantapur's Telugu Yuvatha president K Murali Prasad Reddy has warned that he'd commit suicide if former minister J C Diwakar Reddy of Congress was admitted to the party.

It is the same situation in Congress. On March 18, in Khammam district, party functionary G Sridevi drank pesticide and was rushed to hospital. All she wanted was to contest the municipal polls. The same day, another party leader, Akkiraju Ganesh, climbed a cellphone tower because he too wanted to be fi elded from a ward. Ganesh's wife Sharada fell unconscious seeing her husband threatening to jump. The man was persuaded to come down.