Vangaveeti Radha surprised one and all with his recent statement that someone was looking to kill him and a recce of his movements had been conducted recently. This was like a bolt out of the blue because Radha is not a faction leader.
Vijayawada was rocked by gang wars from the 1970s till the death of Vangaveeti Ranga in 1988. After the death of Ranga and his arch rival Devineni Nehru, their legacies are now being carried forward by their sons Vangaveeti Radha and Devineni Avinash.
In all fairness, neither Radha nor Avinash are continuing with the faction culture as the times have changed. They are active politically but not through the route of violence.
Against this backdrop, Radha’s comments have evoked a lot of curiosity. Who is targeting him? Definitely not Avinash! Is it the YSRCP? Definitely not, because Radha’s best friend Nani Kodali is a Minister in the YSRCP government and another close friend Vallabhaneni Vamsi is supporting the YSRCP. They themselves were shocked by Radha’s comments.
The last thing the YSRCP needs at this juncture is a political murder on their hands and there is no way the Party will resort to such activities. From a political standpoint, there is absolutely no motive as to why anyone would want Radha dead.
Does he have any personal enmity with anyone because of his business dealings etc? In that case, he should have made a complaint to the police. Besides, soon after his comments, the government was quick to offer security which was rejected by Radha. Why? Why do you refuse security if there is a threat to your life?
In recent times, Radha has lost the support and respect of his community by joining the TDP and then claiming that it wasn’t the TDP which killed his father but a group of people.
He has become politically irrelevant whereas Pawan Kalyan is going all out to emerge as the Kapu community leader. Therefore, Radha’s comments seem to be an attempt to recover lost ground more than anything else because even the Police Commissioner of Vijayawada has given an official statement that there is absolutely no evidence of any sort of evidence to substantiate Radha’s claims.
Nevertheless, added the Commissioner, we will be protecting him.
So, is this whole ‘death threat’ episode, a desperate attempt by the Vangaveeti man to get back in the reckoning? If so, it’s really sad because baseless allegations in Vijayawada can create unrest between communities in which innocents get trapped.
Samyuktha Munishetty
