Telangana: Ex-MP Nandi Yellaiah dies of Covid

HYDERABAD: Veteran Congress leader and eight-time MP Nandi Yellaiah died of Covid-19 at a hospital here on Saturday.
He was 78. Yellaiah was admitted to the hospital on July 29 due to ill-health. He tested positive for Covid-19 and died while undergoing treatment.
Condolences poured in for Yellaiah, a Dalit leader, who rose from the ranks of a party worker to a councillor of Municipal Corporation in Hyderabad to being elected six times to Lok Sabha and twice to Rajya Sabha.
He was in the forefront of the first phase of Telangana agitation in 1969 and is popularly known as ‘Dalitha Bandhavudu.’ He won from Siddipet Lok Sabha constituency for five terms and once from Nagarkurnool.
AICC interim president Sonia Gandhi, CM K Chandrasekhar Rao, Telangana Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, AICC general secretary in charge of Telangana RC Khuntia, former ministers Marri Shashidhar Reddy and Mohammed Ali Shabbir, TRS ministers and several others condoled his death. Sonia Gandhi spoke to Nandi Krishna, a family member of Yellaiah.
Uttam Kumar Reddy said the death of Nandi Yellaiah has left a void in the Congress party.
Yellaiah had also served as a member of the standing committee of defence. He also served as an MLC for some time in undivided Andhra Pradesh and was vice-president of Pradesh Congress Committee.