Following the humiliating defeat in the recent assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Telugu Desam Party headed by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has plunged into crisis.
Several TDP leaders have started deserting the party and jumping into the Bharatiya Janata Party to safeguard their political future.
Leaders like Rajya Sabha members Y S Chowdary, C M Ramesh, T G Venkatesh and Garikapati Mohan Rao, along with several others have decided that joining the BJP is the only option to protect their business interests.
While Naidu is getting old, the party leaders feel his son Nara Lokesh has turned out to be an iron leg as he failed in not only winning his own assembly seat, but also galvanising the party cadre.
So, the natural question that arises in the minds of the TDP cadre is who will resurrect the party.
Many feel only Naidu has the capacity to bring back the glory to the party, there are also a section of party leaders who believe that only a person from Nandamuri family can revive the fortunes of the party.
According to sources, some senior TDP leaders have contacted popular hero from Nandamuri family – Junior N T Rama Rao to take active part in the party activities, since only he can take on a strong leader like Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. They made all out efforts to convince him to help revival of the TDP.
It is learnt Jr NTR has agreed to support the TDP, but on one condition that Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh should be pushed to the back seat and daughter-in-law Nara Brahmani be made the working president of the party.
It would mean, Naidu should declare Brahmani as his political successor but not Lokesh. This is essentially to convey to the people that a person from NTR’s family will be heading the party.
Brahmani is daughter of NTR’s younger son Nandamuri Balakrishna so, she can be considered a successor of NTR. At the same time, she is also the daughter-in-law of Naidu, she would also represent Nara family.
However, when the TDP leaders brought this to the notice of the TDP chief, he is learnt to have blatantly rejected the proposal.
He said only Lokesh would be his successor and that he would appoint his son as the party’s working president sooner or later.
If that is Naidu’s intention, he would only be responsible for the success or failure of the TDP!
