Red Salute to the Communist Revolutionary leader and
A Great Agitator Comrade Kotaiah
Com. Kotaiah (Koppula
Mohan Reddy), APSC Member of
CPI (ML); the Member of Party’s
Central Control Commission; the
National Executive Member of
AIKMKS and the State Secretary
of RCS (AP) has suffered heart
pain and suddenly departed in the
early hours on 1-12-017 in his
own home at Krishna Lanka in
Vijayawada, AP. He led a seven
decades long glorious life of
Communist Movement in his age
of 80 years.
Com.Kotaiah took birth in
1938 in Pullayagudem village of
Ramannapet taluka, today’s
Atmakur Mandal, in the then
Nalgonda district. Com. K.kotaiah’s
father Narsimha Reddy was a
guerrilla fighter in the heroic
Telangana Peasant Armed
Struggle against the feudal
landlords and Nizam’s rule. In his
tender age, Com. Kotaiah had
extended his active help and
cooperation to this struggle as a
member of Bala Sangham in the
village.
After the completion of his
education, Com.Kotaiah had
worked as a Primary School
teacher for some time. He was
dismissed from the job on the
January - 2018
plea that he belonged to a
Communist family. When the
ideological differences came to the
fore in the Communist Movement,
he leaned towards the Marxist
Party politics under the guidance
of Com. Nandyala Srinivas Reddy,
a leader of Telangana Peasant
Armed Struggle. He was active in
the working class Movement while
working as a RTC conductor in
Hyderabad. In 1965, he went to
Vijayawada as a courier of Com.
Nanduri Prasada Rao who was
then incharge of the Party’s State
centre. It was a period of repression.
As he had already married (1964)
Dhanalakshmi, the daughter of
Satyam, Krishna Lanka Hotel in
Vijayawada, he made Vijayawada
as his centre and continued the
activities of the movement there.
He organised many agitations
in Vijayawada as a youth leader,
TU leader and more importantly as
the leader of riksha workers. He
led the movements of riksha
workers and other poor in Gunadala,
Arulnagar and Machavaram for
house sites. When he was
working openly in 1963 – 69, 1973
– 75 he distributed the Party paper
Janashakti widely among the party
ranks and the sympathisers. He
fixed the riksha tyres to his bicycle,
peddled in and around Vijayawada
town and supplied 500 copies of
the party paper. Not only that. He
was extensively discussing politics
with them. From this we can
understand how extensive and
intensive his work was.
Com. Kotaiah came over to
the Communist Revolutionary
politics in the period of post-
Naxalbari and Srikakulam
Movements. As a follower of
Comrades T.N and D.V he made
efforts to build the revolutionary
Communist movement. He
worked hard in the conditions of
repression to get the important
documents of the party printed
and distributed among the cadre
and equip the ranks. Com. Kotaiah
attended the April 1969 state
Convention of the party held in
Atlapragada as a delegate. Later,
in the conditions of serious
repression, Com. Kotaiah was
arrested, implicated in the arms
case, taken to various police
stations in Madhira and was
subjected to severe torture.
Along with the Madhira case,
com. Kotaiah’s nane was also
included as an accused No. 17
in the TN Conspiracy Case which
was already foisted against the
top leaders of the party. He was
then moved to Secunderabad
Jail. Inside the jail, on one side,
he spent time in the study. He
stood like a shield in defence of
the leaders in countering the
slanderous propaganda that was
going on at the time against the
party and the leadership.
No sooner Com. Kotaiah
came out of jail on a condition
bail, he plunged himself fully
among the workers and masses
of people and moved theminto
action widely on their problems.
The strike of Nidamanoor Sugar
Factory workers, the people’s
resistance against the police in
this context; the struggle in
defence of dalits, in Gundimeda,
Paturu and Gudavalli; together
with this, the struggle of Giripuram
people for house sites while
resisting goondas; standing in
defence of workers of Tadepalli
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