Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N.Chandrababu Naidu will wind up his Vastunna Meekosam padayatra in the district on Wednesday.
The impression one gathers from his walkathon is that the people’s response has been lukewarm and party leaders have by and large failed to mobilise crowds. The situation was not encouraging right from day one. “More than one lakh people will welcome Mr. Naidu at Garikapadu,” the TD leaders said in response to Congress leaders’ assertion that they would obstruct the padayatra. But hardly, 10,000 turned up. Mr. Naidu was visibly upset over the poor turnout at many places.
Around 300 people, including mediamen, security personnel, TDP leaders and workers, activists of the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi and villagers gathered at Magallu e (Jaggaiahpeta constituency) which has a population of about 2,800. The situation is no better in Nandigama and Mylavaram constituencies. Interestingly, the TD has sitting MLAs in all the three constituencies. However, gathering at Paritala, where Mr. Naidu inaugurated a pylon to mark his 117-day walkathon, was impressive. And it appeared Mr. Naidu was waging a lone battle. The situation slightly improved after he entered the city.
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The Telugu Desam leaders, instead, made use of the padayatra to consolidate their position in the party. The groupism in the party was overtly seen during the padayatra. Mr. Naidu’s rhetoric also failed to strike a chord though he made several promises. The padayatra paved the way for discontent with emergence of new faces such as Kesineni Srinivas (Nani) and Devineni Chandrasekhar.
To wrap it up, the padayatra fuelled groupism and discontent with tittle-tattle like TDP Urban post will be given to Nagul Meera, Mr. Nani is likely to be fielded from Vijayawada Lok Sabha, and Mr. Chandrasekhar will be given “suitable post” in Telugu Yuvata.