Vijaywada: In the united AP state, one witnessed a caste biases between Kammas and the Reddys. After the state’s bifurcation, the caste war in Andhra Pradesh is now between Kammas, Kapus and the Reddys.
When megastar Chiranjeevi floated the Praja Rajyam, the caste differences between Kammas were heightened. When Congress MLA Vangaveeti Mohan Ranga was murdered, actual caste war between the Kammas and Kapus broke out into the open.
The recent all-out war by Jana Sena Chief Pawan Kalyan is evoking a fear of that post-1983 scenario in this region. While Vangaveeti Mohan Ranga and Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru) groups became the champions for the cause of Kapus and Kammas respectively in the ’80’s, the changing political equations in the recent past have been showing the indications that Vijayawada region is divided into caste groups again.
Analysing the situation in the Capital region, APCC president Dr N. Raghuveera Reddy has observed that emergence of regional parties and their penetration is the root cause for this social stigma.
“In this hi-tech era, using humans as the warriors of caste and community is a shame,” Mr Raghuveera Reddy observed and added that post-90 and post-2000, we saw the absence of caste wars in Vijayawada city, the present Capital region. This may be because of the youth’s diversion towards education, business, and career-oriented programmes.
Public has given up the tendency of encouraging caste groups, after the ’90s and leaders like Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru) also were able to erase the negative image from of family, as party to caste conflicts, after Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga’s murder.
