The Hindu : Balayogi's funeral to be held in his native village

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 04, 2002

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Balayogi's funeral to be held in his native village

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD March 3. The funeral of the Lok Sabha Speaker, G. M. C. Balayogi, will be held in his native village, Edurulanka, on March 6.

This announcement by the authorities ended the day-long uncertainty over the funeral arrangements for Balayogi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in Krishna district today. The body will be flown in an IAF plane on Monday morning to New Delhi and kept in the premises of Parliament, now in session, to enable the MPs to pay their last respects. The same evening, it will be taken to his Lok Sabha constituency, Amalapuram in East Godavari district, and kept there for people to have a glimpse. The last rites will be performed on Wednesday. Earlier, it was brought to Hyderabad from Gannavaram airport near Vijayawada and taken to the Speaker's residence in the Ministers' colony at Banjara Hills. After his wife, Vijaya Kumari, and their family members paid their homage, it was taken to the TDP office at the NTR Memorial Trust.

The A. P. Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, and the Union Minister, M. Venkaiah Naidu, who airdashed to Eluru, had initially decided that the body would be taken back to Amalapuram. But, the Central leaders had other plans. The Prime Minister, A. B. Vajpayee, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Pramod Mahajan, and several other leaders, strongly insisted on flying it to New Delhi. The apparent logic behind this request was to allow the Government and the MPs to give a homage.

However, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu and Mr. Venkaiah Naidu were averse to this idea.

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