At 7.30 p.m., as the flames started rising from the funeral pyre of BRS MLA Lasya Nanditha, there was a chilling calm. The family members watched in hushed silence holding each other’s hands at the East Marredpally’s Smashana Vatika, located about four km from her residence in Karkhana’s Gruhalakshmi Colony, Secunderabad.
The silence was an arc of grief away from the inconsolable wailing that followed the news of Nanditha’s death in a road accident. The families of neighbours and party workers shared the grief after her body was shifted to her residence, an upper-middle class neighbourhood in Karkhana, from the Gandhi Hospital after an autopsy at around 11 a.m., almost six hours after her demise on the city outskirts in Patancheru.
Through the day, political leaders led by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy offered floral tributes condolences at the residence of the MLA.
Earlier, Former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao along with other senior BRS leaders like Sabitha Indra Reddy visited the late SCB MLA Sayanna’s residence to pay homage to Nanditha. Mr Rao spoke to her mother, and elder sister Niveditha and consoled them. The family members wailed inconsolably when BRS MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha reached the family home.
“She always greeted me with a smile even if she did not necessarily have to,” said one of the women standing by the crowd outside her residence.
Around afternoon, Chief Secretary A. Santhi Kumari issued orders and directed the Hyderabad District Collector and the Hyderabad Police Commissioner to make necessary arrangements in consultation with the family members.
