Interesting as it might sound, the farmer from Chittoor district who was gifted with a tractor by Bollywood actor Sonu Sood turned out to be a political activist, if not a leader.
V Nageshwar Rao of Mahalrajulapalli village of K V Palli mandal became an overnight celebrity when Sonu Sood sent a tractor to his residence on Sunday evening after watching a video of his two daughters tilling the land that went viral in the social media.
Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu also sought to take political mileage out of it by announcing that he would take care of the education of the two girls and thanking Sonu Sood.
However, enquiries by the officials revealed that Nageshwar Rao was an activist of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee.
He had even contested the assembly elections from Madanapalle in 2009 on behalf of Lok Satta Party and had polled around 1,000 votes.
When a reporter confronted Nageshwar Rao in the village, he admitted that he had indeed contested the elections from Madanapalle. But he said he was only a dummy candidate for Lok Satta.
“The actual contestant was one local doctor by name Parthasarthy for whom I was working for a salary of Rs 6,000. Just before the closure of nominations, the doctors realised that he would lose badly and would not be able to get any votes. Since he did not want to face the humiliation of getting such a miserable number of votes, he fielded me on his behalf and I got a little more than 1000 votes,” he said.
He, however, said he had no connections with any political party.
“I have not asked any favours from any one, whether it is Jagan Mohan Reddy or Chandrababu Naidu,” he clarified.