Senior Telugu Desam Party leader and former union minister Kinjarapu Yerran Naidu died in a road accident in Srikakulam in the wee hours of Friday. His car hit an oil tanker around 2 am and he died while undergoing treatment at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Srikakulam an hour later.
Police said he received serious injuries on his chest and all the efforts of the doctors to save him failed.
Several others including the district Telugu Desam president Choudhary Narayanmurthy were also injured in the accident.
Fifty-six-year old Yerran Naidu was returning from Visakhapatanam to his village after attending a funeral and a wedding when the accident took place. He was reportedly in the driver's seat.
His last rites will be performed in his native village in Nimmada.
A backward class leader, Yerran Naidu was a very popular figure in the Srikakulam
district and one of the major factors in making north Andhra a fortress of the TDP.