Pothula Vigneswara Rao spearheaded the Dalit Mala Mahanadu movement in Andhra Pradesh to fight against the categorisation of Scheduled Castes into A, B, C, D groups.
The 20 per cent Dalit population of Andhra Pradesh was a traditional vote-bank for the Indian National Congress party since the Independence of India in 1947.
Rao opposed former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu's division of scheduled castes in the state into sub-groups.
[citation needed] The Mala Mahanadu's fight against classification of SCs began in 1997 when it first contested a GO issued by the Chandrababu Naidu government.
[7] He appealed to Madigas, the largest SC group that had waged a long-drawn struggle for categorisation, to put behind their differences and join hands to fight for the larger cause of empowerment of SCs.