Hyderabad: Telangana veteran Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Dharmapuri Srinivas passed away due to prolonged illness at his residence in the early hours of Saturday, his family members said on Saturday.

Srinivas was 76 and is survived by two sons. His elder son Dharmapuri Sanjay is a Congress leader and ex-mayor of Nizamabad, and his younger son, Arvind Dharmapuri is presently a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Nizamabad.

“My father Srinivas, fondly called Seenanna is no more. I will miss you, daddy! He is my father, my mentor and teacher. He taught me how to fight and how not to fear. He told me to love people and live for people. Daddy, you will always be with me and within me,” a post from Arvind on Facebook at 3.30am on Saturday read. 

A veteran Congress leader, Srinivas was a three-time MLA from Nizamabad (rural) in 1989, 1999 and 2004. He was also a two-time president of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee and played a key role in bringing the party to power in 2004 and 2009.

Popularly known as DS, Srinivas served as minister for rural development and information and public relations in the then Congress-led central government between 1989 and 1994 and again as higher education and intermediate education in the Y S Rajasekhara Reddy government between 2004 and 2009.

Srinivas also played a key role in the Congress party taking up the Telangana cause. He was instrumental in the alliance between the Congress and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) (then Telangana Rashtra Samithi) in 2004.

After the bifurcation of the combined state, Srinivas resigned from the Congress and joined the BRS on July 2, 2015. He was subsequently made Rajya Sabha member but was sidelined by the party after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on the pretext that he had supported his son Arvind from Nizamabad against BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha in the Lok Sabha election.

After the completion of his Rajya Sabha term in 2022, he returned to the Congress but did not play any active role and withdrew from active politics due to his ill health.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president and chief minister A Revanth Reddy and his cabinet colleagues expressed shock over the demise of Srinivas and extended their condolences to the bereaved family members.