TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s recent visit to Kuppam constituency, which he represents in the Assembly, gave the much-needed boost to the disillusioned party cadre, who were learnt to be facing the heat from the ruling YSRCP.
Poll debacle
Once a TDP citadel, Kuppam got the highest vote share for the party. However, in the 2019 general elections, Mr. Naidu’s vote share slid in Kuppam. That apart, the TDP had to face a major embarrassment as it lost 13 out of the 14 Assembly constituencies in Chittoor district. Mr. Naidu’s victory was the lone exception.
After the elections, the TDP cadre either maintained a low profile or vanished from the political landscape, fearing backlash from the YSRCP after its thumping victory.
It was in this backdrop that Mr. Naidu’s visit acted as a morale booster. It was an occasion when the party workers gave Mr. Naidu the “ground report” on how things had gone awry in the entire district post the elections.
‘Do not lose heart’
“Mr. Naidu gave them a patient hearing and asked them not to lose heart. He wanted the workers to leave no stone unturned to win the ensuing local body elections,” party MLC Gounivani Srinivasulu, who hails from Kuppam, told The Hindu .
Mr. Naidu, during his visit, flayed a section of the police for allegedly playing into the hands of the ruling party leaders and “framing” innocent TDP workers.
In the closed-door meeting, Mr. Naidu was learnt to have expressed displeasure over the spate of attacks on the TDP workers.
“I never took sides after the elections. But the YSRCP government is not magnanimous enough,” he reportedly told the leaders.
While recalling that the TDP, despite tasting defeat at the hands of the Congress in 1989, 2004 and 2009, had not suffered humiliation as was being witnessed now, Mr. Naidu reportedly observed, and appealed to the cadre to stay courageous and project the government’s failures to ensure victory for the party in the local body polls.
