Hyderabad, March 9: Lakshmi Parvati, 56, the second wife of the late N.T. Rama Rao, was rendered homeless on International Women’s Day.
Andhra Pradesh High Court yesterday decided that the house in Banjara Hills where Lakshmi has been living alone since NTR’s death in 1996 would go to his US-based youngest daughter Uma Maheswari.
“I don’t know why my children are now after this property though their father had given several such assets to them,” Lakshmi said after the ruling.
The 1,300-square-yard property is worth several crores — the rate in Banjara Hills before the Telangana agitation was Rs 75,000-Rs 1 lakh a square foot and is about 20-30 per cent less now. Hotel Banjara, Hyderabad’s oldest five-star hotel, is located behind the house.
NTR’s widow claimed he had told her on several occasions the house was hers and she could stay there till her death. She has no legal documents to back the claim but said she would appeal against the verdict.
The two-storey house with a small garden on 11 Banjara Hills Road that NTR had moved into after he lost power in 1989 became the platform for the power struggle that broke out within the family following the Telugu Desam founder’s marriage with Lakshmi in 1992. His first wife had died in 1989.
It was to this house that Orissa leader Biju Patnaik had arrived to try to make peace in the family but failed.
In 1992-93, NTR waged a war for prohibition from here. He swept back to power at the end of 1994 only to be toppled by son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu nine months later in September 2005. He died in January 1996, isolated from family and friends.
Yesterday, the court ruled that the house should go to Uma Maheswari, in whose name NTR had signed it off even before he became chief minister for the second time in 1994. Since Uma moved to the US after marrying an industrialist based there, she asked her father to continue living in it.
After NTR’s death, Lakshmi staked claim to the house and to his political legacy — an enduring image from that time is that of NTR’s eldest son-in-law Daggubati Venkateswar Rao, whose wife Purandeswari is now a Congress Union minister, sitting at her feet in a show of support. She ruled over the Telugu Desam-NTR — renamed Telugu Desam-LP — with 50-odd MLAs still loyal to her late husband from his chambers in the house where a bronze bust of NTR had pride of place.
Lakshmi claims she is attached to the house because her marriage with NTR was solemnised here.
Uma did not evict her stepmother but her brothers Harikrishna and Balakrishna, whom she handed the power of attorney, approached the courts.
The high court yesterday upheld the judgment of the city civil court, asking Lakshmi to leave. It observed that the NTR family had never accepted Lakshmi Parvati as one of them and fought with her over all the possessions NTR left behind, including the party he founded.
A few years ago, Lakshmi Parvati also lost control of a neighbouring three-storey building that housed mementos from the 400-odd films that NTR had acted in — wigs, fake jewellery and costumes including those he wore to play Ram, Krishna and Duryodhana.
Lakshmi has been given two months to leave. She has a son from her first marriage, who was brought up by his father after the couple divorced and is in his twenties now, but no one she can turn to for shelter.
The party that she lorded over is long lost, with all the MLAs eventually crossing over to Chandrababu Naidu. A long way from 1994, when she was hailed as the Adrusta Lakshmi (lucky mascot) of the Telugu Desam.
To a question why Lakshmi failed in the highly emotive Andhra society unlike Jayalalithaa who was accepted as MGR’s successor in Tamil Nadu, senior film critic Vinayaka Rao said: “Simply because Lakshmi Parvati was not an actor and did not catch the imagination of the people.”
These days, Lakshmi is seen with Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, YSR’s son who has floated the YSR Congress Party after leaving the Congress. She has backed him on all of his campaigns — the Odarpu Yatra and hunger strikes at Vijayawada, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.
Jagan, who gifted an SUV to actor-politician Roja who fell out with Chandrababu Naidu and joined hands with him, could well be the person Lakshmi will now turn to for support.
