N Chandrababu Naidu lures Kapu leader to strengthen Telugu Desam

Rajahmundry: Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu seems to be consolidating the predominant Kapu community vote bank in Godavari districts by luring its leaders and supporters to join the party.

As part of this move, he invited party’s former leader and YSR Congress West Godavari unit president Kothapalli Subbarayudu from Naraspuram in West Godavari to come back to party fold. Accordingly, Mr Subbarayudu has accepted his invite and will be joining the party soon after the CM returns from his foreign jaunt.

Mr Subbarayudu maintains a good number of followers and vote bank in whichever the party he is associated with. Though he served as a Cabinet minister in previous TD regime, he switched loyalty to erstwhile Praja Rajyam, led by K. Chiranjeevi, and as the party was merged with Congress, he served as its leader for some time.

Later, he quit the Congress and joined the YSR Congress and contested unsuccessfully, representing the party from Narasapuram Assembly segment in 2014.

Since then, he is with YSR Congress until he changed his mind a few days ago. “CM himself asked our leader to come back to the party and our leader accepted it,” said Pappula Rama Rao, a close confidant of Mr Subarayudu.

The Chief Minister is learnt to have told Mr Subbarayudu that the party wants a senior leader like him who wished to work for the development of the state. Mr Subbarayudu’s followers are confident that their leader will be given the responsibility to lead the party in West Godavari in the capacity of district president and also will be given an opportunity to serve as an MLC.

When contacted, Mr Subbarayudu said, “I am going to join Telugu Desam soon. As the TD government has been initiating a series of welfare schemes and developmental works, I am joining it to contribute my share in such works.”

In West Godavari, out of 15 Assembly segments, TD won 14 while its political ally BJP secured the remaining one. Though there is no presence of Opposition YSR Congr-ess in any segment in the district, CM Naidu wants to wipe out even the remnants of any Opposition.

Earlier, two YSR Con-gress MLAs, Jyothula Nehru from Jaggampeta segment and Varupula Subba Rao from Prathi-padu segment in East Godavari hailing from Kapu community joined the TD.

On the other hand, as film star Pawan Kalyan, who belongs to Kapu community, announced that his party Jana Sena will contest in the polls scheduled to be held in 2019, CM Naidu feels a potential threat to his political hegemony in the state and accordingly, he started luring the Kapu community in to the party in a bid to pre-empt the Pawan Kalyan’s strategy to get community support.

Political analysts say that as CM Naidu is losing his hold in Telangana and his party’s alliance with BJP is almost on verge of collapse, he is focusing more in AP to strengthen the party further to come back to power again in 2019 polls.