TDP leader and former AP Speaker Siva Prasada Rao commits suicide
Hyderabad, Sep 16: Senior TDP leader and former Speaker of Andhra Pradesh Assembly Kodela Siva Prasada Rao was declared dead at a hospital here on Monday amid speculation that he committed suicide.
He was 72.
Mystery appeared to shroud the death of Rao as the exact cause of death was not immediately known and a senior police official told PTI matter is being investigated.
TDP politburo member Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy said Rao was reportedly brought to the Basavatarakam Cancer hospital here by his staff.
Rao, a medical doctor, has been a director of the Basavatarakam Cancer hospital.
Reddy said he and other TDP leaders visited the hospital after coming to know about the former Andhra Speaker's death.
Rao's daughter, who was present at the hospital, was in a state of shock and they could not ask her what had happened, Reddy said.
Police investigation was on into the matter, he said.
Rao, who lost the Assembly elections in May this year from Sattenapalli in Guntur district, was the Speaker of the Assembly during 2014-19.
He was elected to the Assembly from Guntur district on six occasions.
He had been a member of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) since its inception and had held key portfolios including Home, major irrigation, panchayat raj, rural development and health, in the governments of TDP founder late N T Rama Rao and incumbent TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, state BJP chief K Laxman and several other leaders condoled the death of Siva Prasada Rao.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
