Gaddar passed away while undergoing treatment at a private hospital
Updated On – 04:05 PM, Sun – 6 August 23
Hyderabad: Revolutionary balladeer and former Naxalite, Gaddar, is no more. He was 77.
Gaddar, who was popular by his stage name rather than his actual name of Gummadi Vittal Rao, was undergoing treatment at a prominent hospital in Hyderabad, where he breathed his last on Sunday.
Gaddar, who went underground in the 1980s and became a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), was the founder of the Jana Natya Mandali, the outfit’s cultural wing.
With the resurgence of Telangana movement, Gaddar supported the cause of a separate Telangana State, and in 2017, severed his ties with the Maoists, though he was not active as a Maoist since 2010. It was in the 2018 Assembly elections that Gaddar, who till then believed voting was a futile exercise, voted for the first time in his life.
Last month, he announced the launch of a new political party, which he called Gaddar Praja Party, and said he would contest the forthcoming elections. He had earlier supported the Congress, and of late, was associated with evangelist KA Paul’s Praja Shanthi Party.
In 1997, he was shot by unknown assailants and though he survived the attack, still had a bullet lodged in his spinal cord.