When YSR Congress party led by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was in power in Andhra Pradesh between 2019 and 2024, the state government had spent hundreds of crores of rupees on advertisements in newspapers and television channels.
The Jagan government used to release front page advertisements, jacket page advertisements and half-page advertisements in the newspapers, whenever the chief minister released money into the accounts of beneficiaries of various schemes through direct benefit transfer mode by pressing the “button” in the computers every month.
However, the advertisements had only one picture – that of Jagan Mohan Reddy and at times, his father late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy.
Though there were five deputy chief ministers and several ministers, none of their pictures would be seen in the advertisements in the newspapers.
After Jagan stepped down from power, paving the way for the NDA government led by Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu after the last assembly elections in June, the first scheme implemented by the new government was enhanced pension scheme.
The Naidu government, too, released front page and jacket advertisements to the newspapers on the implementation of pension scheme. However, the advertisement had the pictures of Naidu, but not the minister concerned – Kondapalli Srinivas.
This led to the talk that Naidu, too, was following Jagan’s model, making the ministers as dummies. Of course, Naidu has not forgotten to give due importance to his deputy chief minister and Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan in every meeting.
However, the recent advertisement released on Diwali day about the launch of Deepam-2 scheme (supply of three gas cylinders free of cost), has some interesting features.
It has the pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, deputy CM Pawan Kalyan and civil supplies minister Nadendla Manohar.
One can understand the publishing of picture of Modi, because the state government is getting central subsidy for Deepam scheme; of Naidu and Pawan Kalyan, because they are heading the government and Manohar, because he is the concerned minister.
But what surprised everybody was the picture of state IT and education minister Nara Lokesh. He is no way concerned with the Deepam scheme; nor has he any special position in the state cabinet.
The only speciality of Lokesh was that he happens to be the chief minister’s son. If Naidu wanted Lokesh pic as he is a cabinet minister, one wonders why there were no pictures of other cabinet ministers.
This has led to the talk that Naidu is planning to establish gradually that Lokesh is going to be his successor and he has to be given due importance in all the government programmes.
So, one won’t be surprised if Lokesh’s picture will appear in every government advertisement hereafter.
It may be mentioned that during Lokesh’s tour to the US recently, enthusiastic TDP supporters of the party’s NRI wing, unveiled the flag of Lokesh, describing him as the future chief minister of Andhra Pradesh!