Page 145 - Demo

The Congress InningsAs a Congressman, PVG Raju had a long and distinguished legislative career both in the Legislative Assembly and the Parliament. He contested a total of six elections, winning all of them %u2013 three as Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) and three as Member of Parliament (MP).When PVG Raju first resigned from Parliament and joined the Congress in 1959, all of his supporters followed suit. The Congress immediately became a force to reckon with in north coastal Andhra and PVG Raju himself immediately became one of the foremost leaders of the party in the state. His entry into the Congress had an impact in his home district too, where earlier, the Congress had not had much influence. In Vizianagaram all the six Socialist MLAs joined the Congress as followers of PVG Raju.PVG Raju joined the Congress on the explicit understanding that his energies would be focused on Andhra Pradesh. The opportunity came in 1960 when he was elected to the Legislative Assembly in a bypoll at Bheemunipatnam. The then Chief Minister Damodaram Sanjeevaiah promptly invited him to join the Cabinet, which he did and was then given the Health portfolio.Though education was his primary interest and passion, he took his job as Health Minister seriously and spent long hours learning the intricacies of the health system and the direction it needed to take. We can get a sense of his priorities when we look at the health budget he presented for the year th 1961-62 on the 19 of March 1961. Its salient features included increasing the number of seats in medical colleges substantially 131