– Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi
The cup of woes of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu seems running over, what with his son Nara Lokesh now being questioned in another corruption case with speculations over his imminent arrest looming large.
The sudden arrest of Chandrababu Naidu and now the questioning of his son Lokesh at the CID offices at Tadepalli that began on Tuesday spells not just personal trouble but also puts the fate of the “family-owned” party hanging in the balance. Lokesh, who is also the general secretary of the TDP, is being questioned, along with the son of another former minister, in the Amaravati Inner Road Ring Road Alignment scam case.
In Andhra Pradesh it continues to be a two-horse race between the ruling YSRCP and opposition TDP, the timing of the arrest of the top TDP leader and the possible arrest of his son makes the party leaderless on the eve of a crucial assembly and Lok Sabha general elections.
If the TDP thought the arrest of Chandrababu Naidu, hailed as the man who propelled Andhra Pradesh into an IT power hub and put it on the global map, would earn him sympathy and help it politically, it was not being seen on the ground as barring the caste groups supporting the TDP (influential and powerful Kamma), the general public appears not to be perturbed over the arrest.
With the image of the politicians being what it is, there is a general belief that the extremely rich politician heading the regional party could have indulged in corruption as was being alleged. Not that it was in any way seen as a disqualification in politics in the people’s mind, but there has been no spontaneous outpouring of public emotions over his arrest, other than from his party cadres and media houses said to be owned and operated by people from the Kamma caste.
Incidentally, the Kamma caste tasted power for the first time in the 1980s when NT Rama Rao stormed to power dislodging the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, and ever since the party and the caste that runs the party, has been ruling the state along with the Congress almost alternatively. It was the death of YS Rajashekhara Reddy, the father of current chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy, that eventually resulted in the ouster of the Congress, especially after the state was carved up to form Telangana in 2014.
Chandrababu Naidu, the first chief minister of truncated Andhra Pradesh, was later challenged and ousted by YS Jaganmohan Reddy who broke away from the Congress and ignored his claims to the party leadership. Since then the Congress has vanished from the state altogether and has no presence in Lok Sabha. Even in assembly, its strength is negligent today.
But with the opposition TDP in disarray, the Congress in the state could be looking at its chances for a revival, what with the sudden momentum the party has gained in the other Telugu-speaking state of Telangana. Recent opinion poll surveys from Telangana that go to polls on November 30 have indicated a surprise Congress victory in the state, where it disappeared with the formation of the new state. Although seemingly impossible at this stage, given that the entire Congress party disappeared, with wholesale desertions, the Telangana revival could make the Congress look at the state with a new perspective, felt a political analyst in Vijayawada.
