Puchalapalli Sundarayya

Puchalapalli Sundarayya was a communist leader from Alaganipadu, in Nellore district.¹ He joined the national movement as a student in 1930.¹ From 1934 he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India.¹ Sarojini Regani names him among the Andhra communist leaders with whom the Telangana communists kept in close touch.²

Early life

According to the Rajya Sabha Who’s Who of 1952, he was born at Alaganipadu on 1 May 1913, the son of P. Venkatramireddy.¹ He studied at Eluru, Rajahmundry and Madras, and at colleges in Madras and Bangalore.¹ He gave up his studies after the Intermediate because of the national movement, in 1930.¹ In February 1943 he married Leela Sundarayya.¹

The Andhra Socialist Party, 1934

The Andhra Socialist Party was founded at Vijayawada on 23 June 1934, with N. G. Ranga as president.³ Regani names Sundarayya among its leaders.³ She writes that the party had a right wing and a left wing from the start.³ The left wing was led by Sundarayya and G. Rajeswara Rao, and it was in fact linked to the Communist Party.³⁴ Regani explains that neither the socialists nor the communists were then strong enough in Andhra to work on their own, so both used the Congress name.⁴

The Telangana struggle, 1946–1948

Regani writes that the Communist Party in Hyderabad State worked as a wing of the Andhra Communist Party, based at Vijayawada.² Its Telangana leaders were in close touch with Sundarayya and Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao.² During the campaign for joining India in 1947–48, Baddam Yella Reddy and P. Hanumaiah kept in contact with them at Vijayawada.⁵

In the Rajya Sabha, 1952

In 1952 he was a Communist member of the Rajya Sabha for Madras.¹ The Who’s Who lists one publication, a Telugu pamphlet on “People’s Raj in Vishalandhra”.¹ It gives his address as the office of the Telangana Communist Party in Hyderabad.¹

Where the sources disagree

Regani’s book spells the name of the left-wing leader who worked with him in two ways:

• On one page she lists “C. Rajeswara Rao” among the party’s leaders.³
• A few lines later she names the left wing’s leaders as P. Sundarayya and “G. Rajeswara Rao”.³

Footnotes

1. Parliament of India, Council of States: Who’s Who, 1952 (1953), p. 187 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

2. Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 208 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Sarojini Regani, Highlights of the Freedom Movement in Andhra Pradesh (1956), p. 140 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 141 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

5. Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 203 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩