HYDERABAD: Braving the heavy rain, people from all walks of life thronged the residence of senior Congress leader S Jaipal Reddy to pay their last respect to the leader. Political leaders cutting across party lines paid homage to the departed soul, recalling their association with him. People from other fields including industrialists, retired civil servants, academicians, social workers and eminent personalities of the city, also paid their last respects.
At Reddy’s residence in Jubilee Hills, people had started pouring in as soon as they heard the news of his demise. Despite the rain, many elderly persons who knew Jaipal Reddy for decades reached to pay homage. Many could not hold in their tears and ended up consoling each other.
Some leaders who were Jaipal Reddy’s contemporaries, including Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and former state home minister and senior TRS leader Naini Narsimha Reddy, became emotional and recalled their association with Jaipal Reddy. Venkaiah Naidu recalled how they used to take on the government together on peoples’ issues in the then Andhra Pradesh Assembly. “We used to sit on the same bench and pull up the government on various matters. They would get tired of our arguments and the questions we posed. The treasury benches used to become nervous whenever he chose to speak,” he said. He was an upright person, he said. His role in forming separate Telangana state would be remembered forever, he added.
Narsimha Reddy, who studied with Jaipal Reddy in Devarakonda High School, recalled how as a student’s union leader they used to take up people’s issues. “We both were in Janata Party and became MLAs at the same time. He used to grill the government with Venkaiah Naidu. Though we had ideological differences, we used to respect each other a lot,” he said.