Krishna and Guntur districts of AP in the late 80’s were especially notorious for the caste wars between the Kamma and Kapu communities.
In fact, a personal vendetta for survival between two rowdy-sheeters Devineni Rajsekhar (Nehru) and Vangaveeti Radha turned into a full-blown caste war as both camps cleverly played the caste card to polarize their respective communities in their favor.
The blood feud ended with the murder of Vangaveeti Ranga. Today, the people of the region are more mature and less prone to taking the law into their own hands.
Nevertheless, from time to time, incidents do happen which serve as a chilling reminder of the older years. NTR’s statue was burnt down at a village in Guntur recently.
In what appears to be a tit-for-tat move, the statue of Vangaveeti Ranga was vandalized at Machilipatnam. The incident triggered sporadic protests in the coastal town.
A large number of youths belonging to Kapu caste and followers of Ranga assembled at the place where the statue stood and raised slogans demanding the immediate arrest of the miscreants.
When will AP be free of such emotions?
