Daughter in eye of storm for ‘running BMW over painter’ sleeping on Chennai pavement, who is YSRCP MP Rao

The YSR Congress Party (YSRCP)’s Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh, Beedha Mastan Rao, has grabbed headlines after his daughter Beedha Madhuri allegedly drove her BMW car over a 22-year-old man sleeping on a pavement in Chennai on Monday. She subsequently surrendered before a local police station and was granted bail on Tuesday.

The deceased was identified as Surya, a painter. The police said Surya was recently married and was striving to make a living through painting and odd jobs.

Born in Iskapalli village of Allur mandal of Nellore district, Rao is the chairman of BMR industries, one of the country’s largest exporters of shrimp. He entered into politics in the early 2000s with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and was elected as a Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) member from the neighbouring Bogol mandal.

Seen to be the first Yadav leader from the TDP in the district, Rao rose to prominence after gaining influence among the three numerically most significant communities – Yadavs (around 2.4 lakh), Muslims (2.2 lakh) and Matsyakaras (around 1 lakh) – in Nellore.

Rao went to neighbouring Gudur district to complete his schooling and was a classmate of fellow YSRCP MP V Vijayasai Reddy in Sri Venkateswara University (SVU).

He made his Assembly poll debut in 2009 from the Kavali segment, where he defeated the Congress’s Vishnuvardhan Reddy by around 19,000 votes. After his election as an MLA, he tasked his cousin Beedha Ravichandra, who was seen as close to TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu and was an MLC, with managing his cadre and other local issues as he went on to become the most prominent Yadav face of the TDP in the state.

“Ravichandra fell out with a section of the cadre over some issues and this dented Rao’s image