Looking back at the ‘Vastunna Meekosam’ padayatra of Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu gives an impression that it did not make the desired impact to provide a firm ground for the party in the district for coming local body polls. Party president had visited the district twice during his padayatra, but the Krishna is the lone district in the entire State that got a chance to organise the yatra in two spells. Despite this opportunity, the local leaders did not chalk out plans to make it a grand success bringing greater publicity to the party.
Barring a couple of meetings, such as Paritala, the response from public to the padayatra was meagre. The leaders did not emphasise much “mobilisation of public” for the walkathon. The lacuna was glaringly evident in the TDP-represented constituencies. To mention a few, in Jaggaiahpeta, Nandigama and Kaikaluru constituencies neither party supremo nor respective MLAs could draw the attention of the public.
Telugu Desam Party has championed the cause of categorisation of SCs, but the turn-out was not impressive in Nandigama and Pamarru. While, Nandigama has a sitting MLA (Tangirala Prabhakar), Pamarru is looked after by Varla Ramaiah, an SC representative. The only respite to the party is presence of handful of activists of Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS) throughout the yatra. The party leaders were seen discussing why there was so little response from the SCs. The response was impressive in Kamma-dominated areas like Patamata. But, equal response was not seen in Kapu dominant areas like Avanigadda.
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The meeting at Gudivada, hometown for N T Rama Rao’s family, was another unimpressive show. Cine actor Nandamuri Balakrishna, who camped at Komaravelli village near Gudivada to liven up the cadre, could not nullify the impact of exit of sitting MLA Kodali Sri Venkateswara Rao (Nani).
The party is in a shambles ever since Mr. Nani switched loyalties to the YSR Congress. The rhetoric of the TDP leader also seems to have conked out if the response were any indication. The people did not respond to most of the issues, except to hike in power tariff and power cuts, he highlighted in his speeches.
The cadre did not get fair chance to speak in review meetings, which were overtly dominated by Mr. Naidu’s speeches.In fact, the Telugu Desam faced drubbing in cooperative elections and MLC Graduates Constituency elections when Mr. Naidu was around. The TDP could bag only one Director Post in the DCCB elections and sitting Graduates MLC also lost the election.
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