Vijayawada: Taking a leap into national politics, Telugu Desam national president and AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday appointed party leader and his son Nara Lokesh as general secretary of the central committee and member of the ex-officio politburo.
Mr Lokesh, coordinator of the party’s workers welfare fund, is the only party leader to be in both the central committee and the ex-officio politburo after Mr Naidu.
Mr Naidu announced the first central committee, politburo, ex-officio politburo and two committees for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Speaking about the elevation of his son, Mr Naidu said Mr Lokesh had done a lot for the party as a common TD worker. He said Mr Lokesh had used technology to enrol a rec-ord number of people as members and earned Rs 53 crore as the membership fee. The two other general secretaries in the central committee will be Revuri Prakash Reddy and Konk-ala Narayana Rao. Union minister Y.S. Chowdary, Kimidi Kala Venkat Rao and L. Ramana have been named to the ex-officio politburo.
While Mr Naidu heads the central committee and the politburo as president, Mr Kala Venkat Rao and Mr Ramana have been named presidents of the AP and Telangana state committees respectively. Mr Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu is the youngest in central committee.
In all, 96 party leaders were appointed to the Telangana TD committee and 70 leaders in AP.
The AP committee has five vice-presidents, five general secretaries, seven official spokespersons, a treasurer, a office secretary, 30 organising secretaries and 20 secretaries.
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The Telangana committee, has eight vice-presidents, five general secretaries, six official spokespersons, office secretary, treasurer, two members of the media committee members. There are as many as 34 organising secretaries and 37 state secretaries.
Mr Naidu named Onteru Pratap Reddy as Telugu Rythu president, Sobha Rani as Telugu Mahila president and Veerendra Goud as Telugu Vidyardhi president for Telangana.
Naidu: Increase venue capacity to 1 lakh people
Given that several enthusiastic people from the state would be willing to attend the event, the Chief Minister also asked officials to expand the capacity of the event to over one lakh people. Earlier it had been planned to provide seating for only 50,000.
The event will also see a special performance called ‘Raithu Vandanam’, thanking farmers for their contribution to the capital. “This will also involve farmers from the villages and artists,” the CM was informed.
The CM directed officials to ensure that all pots, containing soil fr-om 16,000 villages, were placed in a space that would retain the holiness with which they had been brought to the venue.
