With just two days left for the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly reassembling again to pass a resolution on abolition of council, Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu appears to desperate to keep his flock of his party MLCs together.
Naidu has been making open appeals to his party members in the legislative council not to succumb to any pressure tactics from the YSR Congress party and get sold out to it. He told them that nothing would happen even if the legislative council was abolished.
“It will take one to one-a-half years for the abolition of council. In the past, I gave the MLA tickets to the MLCs who stood by the party in the hour of crisis. I will honour you people again with bigger posts. Even otherwise, we shall revive the council, once the TDP comes to power again,” Naidu told the MLCs in a teleconference on Saturday.
He told them to be brave and not get panicky. He alleged that the YSRC leaders were trying to intimidate, threaten and use all sorts of tricks to lure his party MLCs. “They have been offering cars, plots, lands and big moneys, besides posts and positions in the proposed zonal development councils and corporations. They also threatened our legislators with booking them in various cases. Yet, they have not succumbed to such pressures,” he said.