Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday visited the house of revolutionary balladeer Gaddar, who passed away recently.
Naidu visited Gaddar’s house at Alwal here and paid tributes to him. He consoled the family members of Gaddar, who passed away on August 6, following a brief illness.
Later, talking to media persons, Naidu said that a false propaganda was made against him that he was responsible for the attack on Gaddar in 1997. He pointed out that the folk singer had met him several times after the incident.
Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh when Gaddar, a former Maoist, was injured in the firing by unidentified persons on April 6, 1997.
Five bullets had pierced Gaddar’s body. Doctors had removed four bullets but the fifth one remained in his spinal cord.
Naidu said Gaddar was not an individual but an institution in himself and has left a legacy. The former chief minister called him a fearless person who relentlessly fought for the rights of people, especially the poor.
Naidu said that he and Gaddar both fought for people. He said while he had been working in politics to eradicate poverty and to do justice to the poor, Gaddar worked for protection of the rights of the poor and for justice to weaker and backward sections.
The TDP leader acknowledged Gaddar’s role in various public movements and his contribution to the Telangana movement.
Naidu said there is no mortality to revolutionary songs and Gaddar will always live on. “He will always be remembered as ‘praja yuddha nouka’ (warship of people’s agitations),” he said.