AMARAVATI: A young industrialist turned politician Mekapati Goutham Reddy abruptly ended his political journey which he begun with a thumping victory over a political veteran when he breathed his last due to cardiac arrest on Monday.
A pall of gloom descended on Nellore district as the party leaders and workers were seen wailing at the party offices in Atmakur and several other villages in the district. Though, born and brought up in Hyderabad, an ever smiling, Goutham did not require much time to develop bond with people from a completely rural assembly constituency.
State government has decided to perform Goutham Reddy’s final rites with full honours on Wednesday at his native village Brahmanapalli of Marripadu mandal in Nellore district as his son Arjuna Reddy is expected to arrive from United States on Tuesday. Goutham Reddy won back-to-back elections from Atmakur constituency in Nellore district in 2014 and 2019 where he defeated two stalwarts from TDP including Anam Ramanarayana Reddy and Bollineni Krishnaiah.
A director in KMC, one of the leading infrastructure firms in the country, Goutham took plunge into politics in 2014 elections at the age of 42 years. It was a cake-walk like victory for Goutham as his father Rajamohan Reddy was then sitting MP from Nellore. He further strengthened his fold over the constituency when he won his second successive election in 2019. Interestingly, Goutham’s work helped YSRCP winning all the village panchayaths, mandals and ZPTCs in the segment in the recent local body elections. Interestingly, Goutham has been one of the key poll-strategists of his father Rajamohan Reddy for over a decade.
Goutham is considered to be very close to chief minister and YSRCP supremo YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. He is senior to Jagan at Hyderabad Public School (HPS). Jagan inducted Goutham into his first cabinet despite presence of several seniors and strong aspirants for the cabinet berth from Nellore district as chief minister had special relationship with Mekapati family which has been loyal to him since he parted ways with the Congress to start YSRCP.
Several senior leaders including Kakani Goverdhan Reddy, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Nallapureddy Prasanna Kumar Reddy, Ramireddy Pratap Kumar Reddy, Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy, Mekapati Chandrasekhar Reddy have all lobbied for the cabinet berth from Reddy quota soon after YSRCP coming into power in 2019 elections. However, Jagan picked up Goutham Reddy as his choice to be in the cabinet.
Since getting industries to AP is a tough task by competing with the challengers Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai, Jagan handed Goutham with most coveted portfolios of Industries, IT and commerce to make AP a best destination for the investors.
Considered to be very soft-spoken, Goutham Reddy worked overtime and kept the AP’s flag rising by making the state as number one in Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) in the country. Himself an industrialist, Goutham Reddy is credited to have designing the best industrial policy for AP which helped attracting good investments to the state in the last two years. He was instrumental in roping in big-ticket investors to Kadapa MSME park as well as Tirupati electronic city.
His uncle Chandrasekhar Reddy is a four-time legislator from Udayagiri in Nellore district. His father Rajamohan Reddy was five-time MP as got elected from Narasaraopet, Ongole and also Nellore. Goutham was eldest of Rajamohan Reddy’s three sons and decided to continue the public service following the footsteps of his father. Although considered to be very close to YS Jagan, party denied Rajamohan Reddy ticket to contest 2019 Lok Sabha elections keeping in view of his age and health. As a mark of respect to the Mekapati family which had been loyal to YSR and Jagan for the past two decades, Jagan made Goutham Reddy cabinet minister.
