Lokesh Nara helps dad Chandrababu Naidu spread Andhra Pradesh agenda

Hyderabad: In a repeat of how N. Chandrababu Naidu played a key role without being in a post between 1984 and ’86 when the late N.T. Rama Rao was at the helm of affairs as Chief Minister and Telugu Desam president, 31-year-old Nara Lokesh, son of Mr Naidu, is doing the same.

Mr Lokesh, who was a key player in the recent elections, is now fully engaging himself in glorifying the TD government and its developmental and welfare schemes. However, he has shunned power and is satisfied with remaining a “party soldier” and continues to play a facilitator’s role between party workers and the party president, reporting ground-level sentiments regarding the key decisions that the government has planned.

Mr Lokesh, the strategist and the planner, is now at the helm of affairs at his father’s Jubilee Hills residence, aided by his strong contingent of trusted 'boys'.

During a conversation with Deccan Chronicle on Monday, Mr Lokesh said, “I am not interested in any posts either in the party or in the government. Let me be judged by my performance. I am interested in interactions with the party cadre to do good for the party and I feel I must do something concrete for the party and I have several plans for this.”

“I am going to prepare a strong contingent for the party; it will be for both Telangana and AP. Some 6.6 lakh party soldiers will be readied in another year’s time. They will all be given employment opportunities and the party will partly finance their individual establishments. The party will even insure their lives. These soldiers will be the eyes and ears of the party at the grass-root levels; we will get constant feedback from them on government activities, the people’s reactions and their involvements etc. will be monitored. Based on these, the government will proceed further,” Mr Lokesh added.

He said that a dedicated team looked after the social media feedback from thousands, which was daily passed on to “Sir” (Mr Naidu).

When asked how the government would manage to generate additional revenues and investments and at the same time offer subsidies, waiver of loans etc. Mr Lokesh, a Stanford graduate in Business Management, said, “Generating revenues need not be by further taxations; the existing taxes can continue to generate more funds, that is not a problem.

With regard to subsidies and waiver of loans, after all people’s welfare should be the top priority of the government, without welfare you cannot bring development and without development you cannot do welfare, both need to go together, and it is not going to be a problem for the government. If we remove all corruption in implementation of the schemes, automatically government revenues will go up.”

Mr Lokesh emphasised that Public-Private-Participation (PPP) in almost all sectors was a must to bring in more development. “The Government should go for taking up the drinking water scheme (NTR Sujala) in the PPP Model. Several reputed Institutions are showing interest in the scheme. They only need the government to provide a small amount of land to establish the unit and the water source so that they can take up the entire distribution of drinking water free of cost. This is a good proposal and will be pushed further. We want to do the same for the Arogyasri scheme.”

“Like the United States president, who takes approval ratings before all major decisions, the TD government will also take approval ratings from the people of Andhra Pradesh before the implementation stage. We will provide the necessary feedback for that,” Mr Lokesh added.

“It is going to be a continuous process. We will have the approval ratings almost on a quarterly basis, we will regularly monitor people of different sections including through IVRS (Interactive Voice Responsive System). We will cover almost two crore people for every exercise like we did it for selection of party candidates in all the Assembly and Lok Sabha segments recently,” he said.

Mr Lokesh pointed out that the accuracy of the reports was such that that he had handed over a ground-level feedback report to Mr Naidu a few days before the election results, which showed that the TD would get 107 Assembly seats in Seemandhra and 25 in Telangana. “Our predictions almost matched the results in Seemandhra but not in Telangana as the people’s mood towards TRS changed in the last few days before polling.”

About the YSR Congress headed by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy being a strong Opposition in the Assembly, Mr Lokesh said, “I do not think that it is a strong Opposition. Indeed, I think that it is a very weak opposition. He (Jagan) is not able to keep his own flock together.” He added that this did not mean that the TD was encouraging defections in the YSR Congress. “We don’t do anything on our own, but if somebody (from YSR Congress) calls me, I need to be responsive, there are several callers like that.”