Kodela & Uma behind Ranga murder, Jagan counters

In order to deflect the blame on the YCP for its alleged role in the Kapu violence in Tuni on Sunday, YCP leader Jaganmohan Reddy made the charge that Telugu Desam Party leaders were behind the murder of Kapu don of Vijayawada Vangaveeti Ranga. Jagan charged that Kodela Siva Prasad, Speaker of the AP Assembly, and Devineni Umamaheshwar Rao, TDP Minister, were behind the murder of Ranga, which was a sensational act in Vijayawada in 1988. The killing caused reverberations in the Kapu community in Coastal Andhra. Jagan further claimed that he was making no new allegation. The conspiracy to kill Ranga was there in the book written by leader Harirama Jogaiah on the Ranga assassination. Significantly, Uma's brother, Devineni Chandrasekhar, who joined the YCP recently, resigned from the party on Monday morning on the ground that the party leader, YS Jaganmohan Reddy, was obstructing State's progress. Although it was not stated, Chandrasekhar had apparently an inkling about charging his brother, Devineni Uma, with the murder of Vangaveeti Ranga, a Kapu warlord.