Chilkuri Sushil Rao

I have great memories of Rajiv Gandhi. I covered the last public meeting that Rajiv Gandhi that he addressed in Telangana before his assassination in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991. On May 20, Rajiv addressed two election public meetings in Telangana. Out of these two, the second one was at Peddapalle. From here, he flew to Vizag in a helicopter. From Vizag he took a flight to Chennai and by road went to Sriperumbudur. I’d travelled from Hyderabad to Peddapalle and having attended the public meeting rushed back to office to write the report. But when I put pen to paper, I felt, it wasn’t quite really about what Rajiv said at the public meeting that I should be writing about. How the public reacted to his arrival made more sense for me to write about. A boisterous crowd greeted him. Rajiv had charmed them. I wrote my report starting with the line: “The Grrr of the helicopter in which Rajiv Gandhi arrived was enough for the crowd to go into a tizzy…” The sub-edi...

"I have just come to know that I have won from the Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat," the candidate said with a glow on the face. It was a moment of triumph. The verdict was clear. The chosen one had all the reasons to celebrate and be so joyful. But I felt sad. I smiled. "Congratulations! I said softly as tears swelled my eyes. They were not tears of joy. I felt sad. There was grief within me. I looked at the victorious candidate's face again. His joy was complete. The satisfaction absolute. I am talking about Harischandra Heda, who was elected to independent India's first parliament in the elections held in 1952 from Nizamabad. He was elected MP from Nizamabad for three terms in a row and was in parliament from 1952-57, 1957-62 and 1962-67. Heda was a close associate of Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, B R Ambedkar and many other leaders.  There is more to Harischandra Heda. Even before elections were held in independent India, he was a member of ...