VIJAYAWADA: Seventy-four years old Telugu Desam chief N. Chandrababu Naidu has risen like a phoenix from political oblivion to once again become the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh with an unprecedented victory.
Naidu served as the leader of opposition from 2004 to 2014 and became the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh once again in 2014 after the state got truncated into AP and Telangana. Under his help, TDP became a part of the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In March 2018, he came out of the NDA on the issue of AP not getting the promised Special Category Status.
Chandrababu lost power in 2019 and became leader of opposition. YSRC members in the State Legislative Assembly humiliated him. His wife Bhuvaneswari had allegedly been abused in the assembly. He cried before the media profusely, finding fault with the ruling YSRC for causing trouble to him.
He was even haunted not to even field his party nominees to contest in the local body polls as the ruling YSRC fielded its nominees and got several posts of MPTCs, ZPTCs and in gram panchayats declared elected unanimously.
The former chief minister went on to face charges of irregularities and misappropriation of funds in AP Skill Development Scam, irregularities in alignment of Amaravati Inner Ring Road, AP Fibernet Scam and so on. He was arrested and sent to Central Jail in Rajahmundry in the AP Skill Development Scam. He spent 52 days in judicial remand.
He even moved the Supreme Court to annul the FIR registered against him in the skill scam, claiming that the prior approval had not been taken from the Governor while booking a case against a public servant as per section 17A of Prevention of Corruption Act.
While Naidu had been in jail, TD leaders and cadre had been crestfallen, fearing about the future of the party. However, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan met Naidu in the Central Jail and announced Jana Sena’s alliance with Telugu Desam. Since then, the two parties started working together.
After Naidu was released from jail on bail. Naidu played a key role in persuading the BJP national leadership to forge an alliance with AP BJP. Finally, TD-JS-BJP forged an alliance and fought the elections together.
Naidu took up an aggressive campaign by touring all over the state braving the sweltering heat and even used to address three to four public meetings in a day to reach out to the people and publicize his Super Six other promises to be implemented in case elected to power.
Naidu and PK even managed to get BJP’s top leaders like PM Modi and union home minister Amit Shah and others to campaign for the TD-JS-BJP alliance in AP.
This helped the three parties get a thumping win in the elections. But the NDA alliance has not done as well as it expected. As a result, Chandrababu Naidu is poised to play a major role in the government formation at the centre, while getting a better deal for AP than in the past.
