Buchi Maheswara Rao

Aithabathula Jogeswara Venkata Butchi Maheswara Rao, known across the Konaseema region of Andhra Pradesh as Buchi Babu, was a Telugu Desam Party politician who represented Amalapuram in the 8th Lok Sabha from 1984 to 1989 and served two terms as the member of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly for Allavaram. He died on Saturday, 17 October 2026, while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Hyderabad. He was 75.

He came from Gopavaram village in Uppalaguptam mandal, in what was then East Godavari district and is now Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema district. His official Lok Sabha biography names his father as the late A. Hanumantha Rao and gives his date of birth as 1 May 1951, while a 2014 candidate listing gives 31 May 1955; news reports of his death give his age as 75. He studied at Andhra University, where he earned an M.A., and later read law at N.V.P. Law College in Visakhapatnam. He described himself as an agriculturist, and his recorded interests were social welfare, rural development, agriculture and sports.

His elected career began in 1983, the year N.T. Rama Rao's newly founded Telugu Desam Party swept Andhra Pradesh. He won the Allavaram seat, reserved for Scheduled Castes, with 31,598 votes (49.02 percent), defeating Paramata Veera Raghavulu of the Congress. Election tables list him under the Telugu Desam banner that year, while Deccan Chronicle described him as an independent in 1983. Alongside his assembly work he chaired the Scheduled Castes Cooperative Finance Corporation of Andhra Pradesh and served as a director of the Andhra Pradesh State Finance Corporation.

In the 1984 general election he moved to national politics, winning the Amalapuram Lok Sabha seat (reserved for Scheduled Castes) for the Telugu Desam Party with 317,481 votes, 61.24 percent of the vote, and a margin of 119,731 over Kusuma Krishna Murthy of the Congress. In the 8th Lok Sabha he was a member of the committee on the Hindu Succession Bill, 1984, which dealt with women's property rights. He sought re-election in 1989 but lost Amalapuram to Kusuma Krishna Murthy, polling 284,638 votes.

He returned to the state assembly in 1994, winning Allavaram again for the Telugu Desam Party with 42,950 votes and a margin of 16,584. In 1999 he contested Allavaram as an independent and finished second to Chilla Jagadeeswari of the Telugu Desam Party. In 2014 he was the Indian National Congress candidate for the Amalapuram Lok Sabha seat, which was won by Pandula Ravindra Babu of the Telugu Desam Party.

His family life was recorded in his Lok Sabha biography: he married A. Jnana Indira on 31 July 1976, and the couple had two sons and two daughters. His daughter Satya Sree later became active in Telugu Desam politics in Amalapuram and spoke about her father in a SumanTV interview.

News reports said he had been suffering from serious health problems for some time before his death in Hyderabad; the specific cause was not made public. Tributes came from across party lines. Telugu Desam leader Palla Srinivasa Rao said his services to the public and to strengthening the party were remarkable. Former Amalapuram MP Chinta Anuradha offered condolences to his family, and Telugu Desam leader Sana Sathish Babu paid his respects at the body. Congress Kisan Sangh state president Kamana Prabhakara Rao, who worked with him during the 2014 campaign, called him a non-controversial and transparent leader. Kankatala Ramam, a director of the Andhra Pradesh Arya Vysya Corporation, laid flowers at his body and called his death an irreplaceable loss for Konaseema.

He is remembered in Konaseema as one of the first generation of Telugu Desam legislators, a Scheduled Caste leader who won a reserved Lok Sabha seat in the 1984 election, and a politician known for being accessible to the people of his constituency.