For quite some time, Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has been going all out to woo nearly 5.50 lakh employees in the forthcoming assembly elections in the state.
He has provided all the facilities for employees who moved from Hyderabad to Amaravati; gave them a five-day week; increased their retirement age from 58 to 60; gave them an additional increment to overcome the problems of bifurcation; arranged special accommodation from women employees etc.
Very recently, he announced handsome interim relief pending the submission of pay-revision commission report.
And on Thursday, Naidu admitted former AP NGOs Association president Ashok Babu into Telugu Desam Party and gave him the MLC ticket under MLAs’ quota, in an obvious move to appease the employees.
At the same time, Naidu has sought to appease Kapu community by giving the MLC seat to Ashok Babu, who took voluntary retirement form the post of Assistant Commercial Tax Officer to join active politics.
Apparently, Naidu is of the hope that even if four lakh employees and their family members vote for the TDP, he would get at least 16-17 lakh votes, which will make a huge difference for the party in the event of a tough contest.