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Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad
Nandamuri Lakshmi Parvathi, the widow of N T Rama Rao, has decided to sue Dr Kakarla Subba Rao, author of the book A Doctor's Story of Life and Death for making 'baseless allegations' against her in connection with the death of the legendary actor and former chief minister five and a half years ago.
In an exclusive interview with rediff.com on Friday morning, Lakshmi Parvathi said she was pained by the 'unwarranted and false' charges levelled against her in the book.
"I am going to sue Dr Kakarla Subba Rao and his co-author Arun K Tiwari in a criminal court for making sweeping and defamatory statements against me. I know that their tirade against me is politically motivated," she said.
Parvathi alleged that her bete noire stepson-in-law and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was behind this 'cheap campaign'.
She accused Naidu of orchestrating this 'vilification campaign' through Dr Subba Rao.
"Chandrababu Naidu is losing people's support. He wants to divert their attention. So, he is using all tricks to rake up dead issues after five years," she said.
NTR's widow refuted Dr Subba Rao's claim that he was the personal physician to her late husband.
"I never saw him coming and monitoring NTR's health," she said.
"Dr Somaraju, Dr Kumar, Dr Chandrasekhar Reddy and Dr Mahalaxmamma were his regular doctors. They checked up his blood pressure and sugar levels every two to three days. They prescribed the medicines. We even maintained a log-book of all these tests," she recalled.
Giving a sequence of events before the death of NTR in the early hours of January 18, 1996, Parvathi said that NTR felt a bit depressed on 17th evening after he was told that Chandrababu Naidu got a stay order from the court freezing the bank accounts of (undivided) Telugu Desam Party.
"You seem to be worried and why don't get admitted to a hospital,", Parvathi recollected telling NTR that evening.
She quoted NTR as saying "No, No, Lakshmi. I am an iron man."
Thereafter, around 9 pm, NTR's astrologer (and present minister) B V Mohan Reddy came and all of them had their dinner.
NTR's eldest son and daughter-in-law had sent non-vegetarian food and she herself had cooked vadas and paranthas.
"NTR enjoyed the food. He even discussed the arrangements for Simha Garjana rally planned by him at Vijayawada with the party legislator Devineni Rajasekhar," she pointed out.
Parvathi said that she had planned to go to Nellore the next day (January 18) but suddenly, in the night, she woke up when she found NTR breathing very deeply.
He suffered a severe heart attack.
"I immediately rang up five doctors and they all came within 10 to 15 minutes. They were Dr Somaraju, Dr Kumar, Dr Chandrasekhar Reddy, Dr Mahalaxmamma and Dr Lakshmi Reddy. They examined NTR and pronounced him dead. They certified that he died due to cardiac arrest," she pointed out.
Brushing aside the charge that she had not called in the doctors promptly or that she was responsible for NTR's death, Parvathi wondered why Dr Subba Rao or others waited for five long years before raking up the issue now.
"NTR's dead body was with his family for two full days and Chandrababu had the entire government machinery under him. I only cried and wept. Why they did not conduct a post-mortem on NTR's body to establish the cause of his death? Who stopped them from doing so?" she angrily asked.
She said if she was hiding the truth, the government should have taken action against her.
She said when her stepson N Harikrishna made similar allegations against her, she, as a legislator, raised the issue in the assembly and urged the then Speaker and the government to agree for a CBI inquiry into the circumstances surrounding NTR's death and her role, if any, in all this, but Chandrababu Naidu never responded to her demand.
"I even stalled the proceedings of the assembly for a day to make Chandrababu accept my challenge for a probe but he refused to do so," she recalled.
She explained, "a week before his death, we got full check-up done on NTR and the doctors found him to be alright."
She said that NTR had suffered cardiac attacks twice before and he was once hospitalised in Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in Delhi.
He underwent a bypass surgery in the United States in August 1984. He again to the US for treatment after a paralytic attack.
She pointed out that Kakarla Subba Rao never bothered to come to see NTR nor did he know anything about NTR's health or the medicines taken by him.
"Yet, he (Dr Subba Rao) has written all sorts of things about me. I had respect for him as he was honest and NTR had appointed him to head the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences. But, without meeting me or checking facts, he has come up with politically motivated allegations against me," she bemoaned.
Parvathi said that she came into NTR's life for reasons known to all.
"NTR had suffered paralytic strokes three times. Nobody in his family was caring for him or lived with him to look after his health. I came into his life after he suffered a major paralytic stroke in early 1993. He was very weak. One specialist called from Bangalore told us that 'anytime NTR may die'. Only with willpower, NTR survived and I nursed him to health," she recalled.
She pointed out the paralytic stroke had its effect on NTR's right eye and his hand.
"This was the reason why I fed him the food. For that also, Kakarla Subba Rao is blaming me. What is my fault, tell me? As a wife, can't I feed my husband and take care of his health? What else am I supposed to do? Who is Kakarla Subba Rao and why is he criticising me?," she quipped.
"NTR was grateful for the services rendered by me. He openly announced before 100,000 people at a big meeting in Tirupati on September 10, 1993 that 'she saved my life and if she likes the idea, I will marry her.' Next day, he married me but this was resented by Chandrababu and others," she said.
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