Hyderabad: A man from Telangana was shot dead by unidentified persons in Florida State of the US.

K. Goverdhan Reddy (50), who was hailing from Yadadri Bhongir district of Telangana, was killed when unknown assailants opened fire at a departmental store where he was working as a manager.

According to information reaching his family in Hyderabad, Reddy was killed when some armed men barged into the store and opened fire. The incident occurred around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday (local time) in Pensacola city.

Another employee of the store was reported to have injured in the attack.

Reddy had gone to US seven years ago. He is survived by wife and two daughters, studying in 10th and 7th standards.

His family has appealed to the Government of India to arrange for bringing the body home.

The death of Pittala Kotaiah, a farmer of Kondaveedu in Guntur district in his own fields almost at the same time when Telugu Desam Party president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu addressed a public rally in the village kicked up a major political storm in Andhra Pradesh.

While the ruling TDP tried hush up the death describing it as a suicide due to personal problems of the farmer, the opposition parties naturally tried to use the incident to run down the TDP government and take political mileage out of it.

But there is a clear difference between the stand taken by two major opposition parties – Jana Sena Party headed by actor Pawan Kalyan and YSR Congress party led by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.

Pawan appeared to be too mild in his criticism of the government in the episode.

He gave a simple tweet saying that the government should not wash its hands of by giving some compensation to the family of the farmer but adopt more sympathetic approach.

“Farmers’ tears are not good for the country,” he said.

A team of Jana Sena leaders led by former MLA Ravela Kishore Babu which toured the village was also very soft towards the government.

It said the death of farmers appeared to be suspicious and hence, the government should order a judicial probe.It demanded that the government should provide a job to one of the sons of Kotaiah.

On the other hand, YSRC launched an aggressive attack on the Naidu government holding it responsible for Kotaiah’s death.

A fact-finding team of YSRC led by Ummareddy Venkateshwarlu said there was an undisputable evidence to say that the BC farmer was killed for refusing to allow his land to be used for creating a helipad for the landing of chief minister’s helicopter.

Ummareddy alleged that the police were trying to hush up the issue by distorting the facts to shield the main culprits.

He said Kotaiah’s land was taken over by the police for a government programme which was scheduled to be attended by Naidu.

He went on to allege that the highhandedness of police was the main reason for the suspicious death of the farmer.

“The farmer expressed his anguish to the village elders and told them that the police and TDP members were destroying his field and within one hour he died. While police maintain that he committed suicide by consuming pesticide, it cannot stand any scrutiny,” the YSRC leader said.

The Congress party on Wednesday accused Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of considering himself a highly intellectual, much more than Dr B R Ambedkar, the architect of Indian Constitution.

Telangana PCC treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy said KCR had shown disrespect to the authors of Constitution of India by attributing motives to them.

“In his representation before the Finance Commission, KCR has alleged that the Indian Constitution was adopted with significant centripetal bias in the distribution of fiscal powers between the Centre and the States. By saying so, KCR is trying to give an impression that Ambedkar’s approach was erroneous and inferior,” he said.

He reminded that it was the same Constitution which has ensured the unity, integrity and cooperative federalism in the country.

The Congress leader advised KCR to shun his negative thinking towards others.

“For some reasons, KCR apparently thinks that his thoughts and ideas are superior and he was above everyone. He literally hates the Constitution of India and wants to replace every Central law with his own. This approach is not good for a democracy and spirit of federalism,” he said.

Reddy ridiculed KCR’s demand seeking suitable compensation from the Centre for the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST).

He reminded that KCR was the first Chief Minister who supported Prime Minister Narender Modi when he introduced a defective GST.

He said that the GST Bill was given a nod in the Telangana Legislature without having a proper discussion. Consequently, he said now Telangana is being deprived of its due share in GST or compensation for the losses that it suffered.

The visit of Congress president Rahul Gandhi to Tirupati to address a mega rally on February 22 is raising a lot of curiosity in the political observers, who are wondering as to what stand he would take on the Telugu Desam Party government in Andhra Pradesh headed by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

Needless to say, the Congress party is pinning all its hopes on Rahul’s visit, which is expected to help the party retrieve its lost ground at least to some extent by taking up the special category status demand.

The Congress party is planning to hold the public meeting at SV University’s Tarakarama Stadium from where Narendra Modi had assured the people of AP that BJP would give special status for 10 years and promised building a world class capital city.

The single slogan for the rally is ‘Pratyeka Hoda Kavali Ante Rahul Ravali’ (If you want special status Rahul should come to power).

However, if the Congress has to get any mileage out of this public meeting, Rahul Gandhi will have to equally blame Naidu for not securing special category status to AP despite sailing with the Bharatiya Janata Party for four long years.

He has to raise the issue of Naidu accepting the special financial package and later taking a U-turn to demand special category status only for political gains.

Since the special category status has now become a sentimental issue, Rahul has to play this card in order to improve the Congress party’s position in the state. But that will not happen without him attacking Naidu.

However, it is unlikely that he will make any comments on Naidu and his government in the wake of the latest bonhomie between the two leaders.

And if he doesn’t, one doubts whether Rahul will impress the people by just targeting Modi.