T
here was an outpouring of grief across Andhra Pradesh on Friday with much of the state shutting down to mourn the late chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, whose funeral cortege snaked its way through surging crowds from his home here to the stadium where national leaders and people lined up to pay homage. The flag-draped and flower-bedecked coffin of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajsekhara Reddy was buried in his native village Pulivendula in Kadapa District on Friday afternoon, amidst a throng of thousands of supporters. The body of the late chief minister, who died in a helicopter crash on Wednesday, was created with full state honours. He was cremated in his native village. The body was then flown to Pulivendula, his native town in Kadapa district, for burial. There, he was buried amidst the gathering of nearly a lakh mourners who came to bid last adieu to their beloved leader. A chaotic situation was created as soon as the IAF chopper carrying his body landed at the cremation ground. Followers of the late chief minister tried their best to go nearer to the casket and see him for the last time. In fact, the TV crew had to face a lots of problems during the cremation due to the crowd gathering. The body was flown in an army helicopter from Begumpet airport after thousands of people paid their last respects at the L S Stadium in Hyderbad. The Andhra Pradesh capital was a sea of grieving humanity as people from all walks of life gathered in tens of thousands on major thoroughfares to give a fitting farewell to their son of the soil, YSR. The last journey began from his house in Begumpet after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and top Congress leaders paid homage and placed wreaths on his body. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi were among the many leaders who flew in from New Delhi to condole the death of the chief minister, whose body was found in the forests of Nallamala on Thursday, a day after his helicopter had crashed. They consoled YSR's wife Vijayalakshmi, son YS Jaganmohan Reddy, daughter Sharmila and other family members. The leaders, who were accompanied by nearly a dozen central ministers, also wrote their condolence messages in a book. Union ministers P Chidambaram, A K Antony, V Veerappa Moily, Prithviraj Chavan, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi besides Chief Ministers Sheila Dixit, Ashok K Gehlot and several senior politicians of different parties consoled the family members. From the camp office, the body of YSR was taken to the Congress headquarters Gandhi Bhavan to enable party leaders to pay respect and from there to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, six kilometres away, where he had been sworn in for a second term in office only four months ago. Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had taken oath as chief minister for a second term on May 20 in this stadium where his body was now brought to enable people to pay their last respects. Though the gathering was huge on Friday too, this time they came to bid a tearful farewell to him. All the way to the stadium were teeming mourners, lined up along the road, on rooftops and packed into the stadium to bid adieu to the man, who had steered the Congress to victory for a second term and died a sudden, tragic death they were still coming to terms with. Thousands of others accompanied the funeral procession as it slowly made its way to the stadium where leaders from across the political spectrum, including Bharatiya Janata Party's L K Advani, paid tribute. Hundreds of vehicles followed the flower-bedecked truck in which the body, draped in the national flag, was kept. Standing by the side of his father's body was his MP son Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, who was appealing to people to allow the vehicle to move. Grieving men and women were standing on either side of the road in Hyderabad and on rooftops to bid adieu to the man who ruled their hearts through a series of pro-poor schemes. Holding national flags in their hands, some mourners were seen running towards the truck to have a closer look at the casket and console Jaganmohan Reddy. That YSR, as the chief minister was popularly known, was one of the Congress' most powerful leaders was underscored by reports that 67 people had died in the state - either out of shock or by committing suicide - after hearing about the death. At the Stadium, it was looked like a sea of human where several thousand mourners gathered to pay homage to Reddy. Several people were injured in a stampede, forcing authorities to move the body of the late Andhra Pradesh CM an hour before schedule. Police failed to control the surging mourners, who broke barricades at several points to rush towards the body kept on a pedestal in the middle of the ground. In the rest of state, a silence fell with normal life coming to a crippling halt. Schools, colleges, offices, shops and businesses closed as a mark of respect to the leader. The usual morning bustle was missing as the government declared a two-day holiday -- Thursday and Friday. The state government has declared a seven-day mourning period. Cable TV operators took all entertainment channels off air.
