Hyderabad/New Delhi, Sep 3 (Inditop.com) More than 24 hours after his helicopter exploded in the dark rain clouds over a dense forest, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and four others were Thursday declared killed, stunning not just his state but the entire country.
“The bodies have been recovered. They will be taken to Hyderabad for post-mortem,” a PMO official in New Delhi told Inditop shortly after the mangled remains of the Bell helicopter were found on a hilltop in Kurnool, about 200 km from here.
Helicopters, search parties and villagers had conducted the search in pouring rain for a whole day and night in the forested hinterland for the wreckage, which was finally located about 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool town.
The helicopter had broken into several parts and the bodies had been charred, a sombre Home Minister P. Chidambaram said in Delhi while making the official pronouncement of his death.
“It appears that because of inclement weather and to avoid cloud formation, the pilot had taken a detour� from the preliminary inquiry, it appeared the chopper went and hit the cliff of a hillock,” added state Chief Secretary P. Ramakant Reddy.
The 60-year-old chief minister, popularly known as YSR, was going to Chittoor, 588 km from this state capital, for a mass contact programme when his helicopter went missing in inclement weather around 9.30 a.m. Wednesday in the Nallamalla forests.
With YSR, who this May steered the Congress to a second stint in power, was his special secretary P. Subramaniam, his chief security officer A.S.C. Wesley and the two pilots of the ill-fated helicopter — Group Captain S.K. Bhatia and Captain M.S. Reddy.
There was shock, disbelief and tears in Andhra Pradesh as news came in that there were no survivors from the crash.
“He is my god. I can’t believe that he is no more,” said an inconsolable Congress worker.
Many towns and villages in the state virtually shut down in grief as the news spread.
The silence that fell over the state was punctuated by muffled sobs and wails of hundreds of people who rushed to the chief minister’s camp office, the state secretariat and the party headquarters in Hyderabad.
The news stunned the Congress that lost one of its most charismatic leaders in the south, It decided to fly its flags at half-mast.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who called an emergency meeting in the national capital, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and several union ministers were expected to reach Hyderabad to pay their last respects to the leader who had helped the party strengthen its foothold in the region.
Calling YSR an “ideal chief minister who was a role model for other states”, the prime minister said he had lost “a valued colleague on whom I depended for support and ideas. Rajasekharaji’s life was one of tireless commitment and service to the people, especially the poor and the underprivileged. His legacy will live on and will inspire many others in the time to come”.
Tributes poured in from all quarters, including from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that also lowered its flags in mourning.
In his death, said senior leader L.K. Advani, the “people of Andhra Pradesh and the country at large have lost a very able and popular leader of masses”.
YSR was last seen Wednesday morning when he prepared to go to Chittoor to launch the ‘Rachcha Banda’, a mass contact programme, despite bad weather.
A day after the budget session of the state assembly concluded, YSR had chosen a remote village in Anuppalle to launch the programme of surprise visits to villages to know people’s problems.
YSR, whose body will be brought to Hyderabad by evening, is survived by his wife Vijayalaxmi, MP, son Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and daughter Sharmila, who reached Hyderabad from Bangalore with her children in early Thursday and was in touch with officers coordinating the rescue operation.
A rescue that was never to be.
