Gandhi's immediate task would be to find a successor to the hugely popular YSR although Finance Minister K. Rosaiah has been appointed to the post temporarily to meet a constitutional requirement.

Nearly half the 34-member cabinet, 20 MPs and 122 out of 155 Congress legislators have declared they want Jaganmohan as the new chief minister, saying this would be best tribute to YSR.

At least one Congress leader threated to split the party if the demand was not accepted.

Friday's burial marked the end of the Lion of Kadapa who went on to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Congress after steering it to a sweeping historic second win in assembly elections this year.

His popularity was evident in the outpouring of grief across Andhra Pradesh as the funeral cortege snaked its way through surging crowds from his home in Hyderabad to the L.B. Stadium.

Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and her son and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi laid wreaths on the body placed in his residence and camp office in Begumpet.

From the camp office, the body was taken to the Congress headquarters Gandhi Bhavan to enable party leaders to pay respect and from there to the stadium, six kilometres away, where he had been sworn in only four months ago.

All the way were teeming mourners, lined up along the road, on rooftops and packed into the stadium to bid adieu to a politician who introduced several policies to benefit the poor.

Hundreds of vehicles followed the flower-bedecked truck in which the body, draped in the national flag, was kept.

At the stadium, a virtual stampede broke out, forcing the family to urge the authorities to fly the body to Kadapa one hour ahead of schedule.