Dr. Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy,
popularly known as YSR, was born on July 8, 1949, in Pulivendula in the
Rayalaseema region.
YSR did his schooling in Balapanur and Bellary, where his father worked.
He got a medical degree from the Mahadevappa
Rampure Medical College, Gulbarga University, Karnataka and completed
his House Surgeonship at S.V. Medical College, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.
At medical college YSR was the President of the Student's Union and was
elected leader of the House Surgeon's Association in SV Medical
College.
After completing his MBBS, YSR served as the
Medical Officer at the Jammalamadugu Mission Hospital for a while. In
1973, he established a charitable hospital named after his father at
Pulivendula.
YSR entered politics in 1978 and was elected five times to the state Assembly. And four times to the Lok Sabha. He never lost an election
During his 25-year-long political career, YSR
was president of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) twice, he
held several important portfolios as minister and from 1999 to 2004,
served as Leader of the Opposition in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly.
A born leader, YSR as a young MLA rallied
Congress MLAs to lead hunger strikes and yatras to highlight important
local issues. Then, in 2003, he led a 1400-km and three-month long
padyatra covering all backward areas in the state to connect with the
people and understand how they lived. That was a turning point.
A year later he led his party to victory in the state elections and became Chief Minister. YSR burst onto the national stage with his padyatra during the campaign for the 2004 Assembly elections. Many saw him as the centerpiece of the Congress strategy against the all-powerful TDP.
In 2009, he broke an Andhra Pradesh jinx to
win again, the only chief minister of the state to have come back to
power after being in office for a full term.
In this picture, YSR
takes oath of office and secrecy during the swearing ceremony at The
Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad on May 20, 2009.
YSR expanded his political empire from Andhra
Pradesh's feudal Reddy heartland. He won 4 Lok Sabha and 4 Assembly
elections from Kadappa. He was credited publicly and often with being a
leader with a huge mass base, a rarity in the Congress party.
YSR was particularly popular for his welfare schemes, which found no match around the country.
In
this picture taken in 2006, US President George W. Bush (C) looks at a
woven hat while on a visit to fibre product exhibition with YSR at the
Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University in Hyderabad.
The
University has been partnered with Cornell University in a US Agency for
International Development sponsored program designed to stimulate
India's agricultural development.
Superstar Chiranjeevi decided to throw his
weight into the last elections and many doubted what YSR would
accomplish for the Congress. But in his campaign, YSR claimed he was a
development man and fought on the back of populist schemes: irrigation,
pensions, schemes for women.
The YSR magic worked, and his
party's victory was seen as hard evidence of a grassroots politician
whose charisma trounced the controversy surrounding him.
YSR was killed after the helicopter in which
he was travelling crash-landed atop the Rudrakonda hill in the
Nallamalla range, in September last year.
The chopper carrying
the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, his Principal Secretary P
Subramanyam, Chief Security Officer ASC Wesley, pilot Group Captain S K
Bhatia and co-pilot M S Reddy, went off the radar screens amid bad
weather and incessant rains.
YSR's body was found along with four others atop the Rudrakonda hill. Commandos reached his helicopter 24 hours after it crashed.
The helicopter went missing after it lost contact with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Chennai - an hour after it took off from the Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad.
The 225 square kilometer area was divided into 7 sectors and one chopper was assigned to each of these sectors. The search operations also focused on water bodies like the Krishna River and the streams and rivulets in the forest.
These images are taken from 1.5 km above the site where the Andhra Chief Minister's helicopter crashed. They were taken using a Large Format Digital camera installed on the low-flying ISRO-NRSA owned Beechcraft.
Thousands of people converged at the Idupulapaya Estate to bid a final farewell to the man who had touched them in one way or the other. A sea of humanity surrounded the burial site to catch a glimpse of YSR Reddy.
Supporters of deceased Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy paid their last tribute to the departed leader during his funeral procession in Hyderabad.
A supporter (C) breaks into tears in front of a poster of YSR Reddy at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad.
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