N.T. Rama Rao (NTR)

His own son-in-law staged a party revolt to take his job. Four months later, he was dead.

N.T. Rama Rao (NTR), founder of the Telugu Desam Party and three-time Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. GODL-India, via Wikimedia Commons.

📑 Contents

Timeline

28 May 1923: Born in Nimmakuru village, near Machilipatnam, into a farming family of declining fortunes.
1949-1993: Builds a Telugu film career spanning around 300 films, over four decades. He is famous for playing Hindu gods, and kept acting even after becoming Chief Minister.
29 March 1982: Founds the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
9 January 1983: Sworn in as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, its first non-Congress Chief Minister. The TDP wins 201 of 294 assembly seats.
15 August 1984: Removed from office by the Governor while abroad for heart surgery. Reinstated on 16 September 1984, after a month-long political crisis.
1985: Wins re-election, and continues in office through a third term.
1994: Returns to power for a fourth term, after the TDP’s 1989 defeat.
16 January 1995: Declares total prohibition on alcohol, within minutes of taking his fourth-term oath.
August 1995: His son-in-law, N. Chandrababu Naidu, leads a revolt within the TDP.
1 September 1995: Naidu is sworn in as Chief Minister, replacing NTR.
18 January 1996: Dies of cardiac arrest, in Hyderabad.

N.T. Rama Rao (1923-1996), popularly called NTR, was a Telugu film icon who became Andhra Pradesh’s first non-Congress Chief Minister.
He was born on 28 May 1923, in Nimmakuru village, near Machilipatnam.
He acted in around 300 films over more than four decades, famous for playing Hindu gods on screen.
He founded the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on 29 March 1982.
He was first sworn in as Chief Minister on 9 January 1983. He is usually described as serving three terms: 1983-84, 1985-89, and 1994-95. A brief 1984 dismissal and reinstatement technically split his first stretch into two separate swearings-in.
In August 1995, his son-in-law N. Chandrababu Naidu led a revolt within the TDP, ending NTR’s final term as Chief Minister.

His debut film role was a supporting part, as a police officer, in “Mana Desam” (1949). His breakout film was the fantasy epic “Pathala Bhairavi” (1951).
He played Krishna in “Mayabazar” (1957), one of his most celebrated roles, in a film widely ranked among Indian cinema’s greatest.
In August 1984, the Governor removed him from office while he was in the US recovering from heart surgery. He was reinstated on 16 September 1984, after a month-long political crisis.
As Chief Minister, he introduced a scheme selling subsidised rice at Rs 2 per kilogram, to low-income families, launched in July 1983.
He enforced total prohibition on alcohol too, but only from January 1995, in his fourth term — years later than sometimes assumed. It followed a grassroots anti-arrack movement led by rural women, starting around 1991-92.
An earlier Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Damodaram Sanjivayya, had been India’s first Dalit Chief Minister, over two decades before NTR’s own rise. See ModHist0250 — Damodaram Sanjivayya: India’s First Dalit Chief Minister.

N. Chandrababu Naidu was sworn in as Chief Minister on 1 September 1995, replacing NTR.
NTR died of a heart attack on 18 January 1996, in Hyderabad, just months after losing power.
His rise fit a wider pattern of South Indian film stars entering politics. MGR had already blazed this trail in Tamil Nadu, becoming CM in 1977; J. Jayalalithaa‘s own rise there overlapped more closely with NTR’s later career.
The TDP remains one of Andhra Pradesh’s major regional parties today, now led by Chandrababu Naidu, who is serving his fourth term as Chief Minister.
See GK0029 — Andhra Pradesh, for more on the state NTR governed.