Tearful adieu to TDP leader Harikrishna

Telugu film personalities, politicians and others on Thursday bid a tearful adieu to TDP politburo member Nandamuri Harikrishna, whose mortal remains were consigned to flames with full state honours.

Harikrishna, who died in a road accident a day earlier, was the fourth son of actor-politician N.T. Rama Rao, the founder of Telugu Desam Party and former Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

Harikrishna's eldest actor son Kalyan Ram lit the funeral pyre amid chanting of hymns at Mahaprasthanam crematorium in Jubilee Hills here in the presence of a large number of mourners, including his other son Tarak Ram, popularly known as Junior NTR, brother-in-law and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, actor brother Balakrishna, and former Supreme Court judge J. Chelameswar.

An armed contingent of Telangana Police reversed arms as the bugle sounded the Last Post as a mark of respect to Harikrishna, who died three days before his 62nd birthday.

Poignant scenes were witnessed at the funeral, attended by Ministers from both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, leaders of TDP, Tollywood celebrities and fans.

Earlier, the body was put on a flower-bedecked vehicle and taken to the cremation ground from Harikrishna's house in Mehdipatnam by a procession of hundreds of people, with Chandrababu Naidu, Chelameswar and close family members acted as pall-bearers.

The former MP and former Andhra Pradesh Minister died on Wednesday when an SUV he was driving overturned in Telangana's Nalgonda district.

Harikrishna was popular as 'sarathi' or charioteer of his father's 'Chaitanya Ratham', the name of the vehicle on which NTR toured the state after floating the TDP in 1982.

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