Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

Personal life

He was born in Katuru near Vuyyuru, located in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh on 4 July 1948. He had four elder brothers: Vangaveeti Koteswara Rao, Vangaveeti Venkata Narayana Rao, Vangaveeti Sobhana Chalapathi Rao, and Vangaveeti Radha Krishna Rao Sr. who was murdered in 1974. Mohana Ranga was married to Chennupati Ratna Kumari; they had a son Radha Krishna Rao Jr., named after Ranga's brother Vangaveeti Radha Krishna Rao Sr., and a daughter, Vangaveeti Asha.

Political career

Vangaveeti Ranga entered public life. His political career began in 1981, when he ran in the municipal election and the Congress Party withdrew its official candidate in his favor. His rival in the district, Devineni Rajasekhar, (Nehru), was sponsored by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which was dominated by the Kamma caste, while Ranga became a leader of the Kapu community. Ranga became an MLA for the Congress Party in 1985; Rajasekhar became a TDP MLA, and eventually a minister. Starting in 1983 both parties were implicated in gang warfare, which was fed by caste rivalry; N. T. Rama Rao was at the time the first Kamma Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. The gang warfare in Vijayawada dated further back; Ranga had served time in prison for the murder of Rajasekhar's brother Gandhi. On 10 March 1988, Rajasekhar's brother Murali was killed, and followers of Ranga were accused. Ranga also campaigned against police abuse. On 10 July 1988, a rally called Kapunadu proclaimed him leader of the Kapus; he was in prison at the time, but after his release later that month began a bus tour called Jana Chaitanya Yatra "to expose the autocratic rule and misdeeds of Rama Rao". Rao had come to power after a van tour.

Chalasani Venkata Rathnam who belongs to the Kamma community, headed the student unions, and worker unions of communists dominated Vijayawada. Venkata Rathnam supported both the politically dominant Vangaveeti family of the Kapu community and the Devineni family of the Kamma community.

However, due to leadership issues, Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga established United Independent Organization, a student union in Vijayawada. Simultaneously, conflicts started to arose between Venkata Rathnam and Vangaveeti Radha to get a hold on Vijayawada transport business dominated by Datti Kanaka Rao, a follower of Chalasani Venkata Rathnam. In 1972, both Kanaka Rao and Venkata Rathnam were murdered allegedly by Mohana Ranga's supporters. These events in turn led to the retaliation by the Devineni Family and the murder of Mohana Ranga's elder brother, Vangaveeti Radha Krishna Rao Sr., in 1974. These two events in turn led to the alleged protracted murders of two brothers Devineni Chandrasekhar (Gandhi) in 1979 by Mohana Ranga and Devineni Murali in 1988.

Subsequently, while on a hunger strike demanding greater personal protection in connection with him being accused of complicity in Devineni Murali and Devineni Gandhi's murders, a group of men allegedly led by their brother Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru), attacked Mohana Ranga's camp in the early hours of 25 December 1988, and his two assigned bodyguards did not intervene. Following his death, there were Kamma vs Kapu caste riots throughout the region. The city of Vijayawada was under curfew for 40 days. 42 people were killed. Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru) was ordered by the Chief Minister to surrender himself, and the Director-General of Police resigned. 44 people were accused of the crime; in 2002, the 33 who had not died in the meantime were all acquitted. One of them, Chalasani Venkateswara Rao, known as Pandu, was murdered in 2010.

Successors

His wife Ratna Kumari was elected MLA in 1989; in her second term, she switched from the Congress Party to the TDP. Radha Krishna also entered politics after his father's death. He was a Congress Party MLA from 2004 to 2009; later he shifted to the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) and then to the YSR Congress Party in 2012.

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