HYDERABAD: CPI (ML) Prajapandha State secretary Durgampudi Venkata Krishna has passed away on Sunday morning, after battling cancer for years. He was 77. Krishna had worked to build a united fight against the fascist forces by bringing together various Communist parties. Leaders from different Communist parties and their allied organisations have described him as an ideal Communist who was the product of revolutionary movements in India.
DV Krishna, who was born in Telukunta village of Palnadu region in Guntur district, had migrated along with his parents to Pentakurda village of Bodhan in Nizamabad district. Influenced by the Srikakulam and Naxalbari movements, he joined the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1970, and then worked with Chandra Pulla Reddy in Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts, forming Ambedkar Youth Associations and fighting against untouchability and exploitation.
He spearheaded the Nimmapalli movement, which had laid the foundations for the Sircilla farmers’ movement, after which he had gone underground for 17 months, working in Ellandhu and Gundala areas of the erstwhile Khammam district, with Baatanna and Doranna groups. He used to debate about bourgeois democracy and autocracy, and talked about the changes happening in agriculture. He had observed that the kind of exploitation perpetrated by Junkers, who were the members of landowning autocracy in Prussia and eastern Germany; was also happening in Indian agriculture. He often talked about economic migration, economic feudalism and capitalism which were on the rise.
CPI (ML) Prajapandha’s additional state secretary Potu Ranga Rao describes him as a rebellious revolutionary who wanted to make changes within the party’s policies and though he was demoted from central committee to State committee and the district committee, he never put his guard down, and had performed every duty assigned him with high integrity, leading a simple and honest life of a true Communist.