The fiasco in voting by TDP MLAs in the Rajya Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh held on Friday caused a lot of embarrassment to party president and former CM N Chandrababu Naidu.
While Naidu had little doubt on the conduct of three rebel MLAs in their voting, what shocked him was the way the vote of Adireddy Bhavani, TDP MLA from Rajahmundry, turned out to be invalid.
He wondered how Bhavani, being the daughter of his close confidant late K Yerran Naidu, could betray her.
She gave an explanation to him later saying that she had erroneously ticked on the first preferential vote, instead of marking “1” in the box.
Bhavani told reporters on Saturday that she was grossly misled by a member of the assembly staff, when she asked how to cast the preferential vote.
“He told me to tick in the box opposite to the candidate and I did the same. But after I came out, I was told that I had done a mistake. There was no way I could rectify the same,” she explained.
The MLA said it was her mistake and she should have consulted the other TDP MLAs.
“As mentioned in a section of media, I did not deliberately do it. Since I became an MLA for the first time, I was in a state of confusion,” she said.
But the mistake is with the TDP president himself.
In the past, he used to arrange mock polling for the MLAs and allot them candidates as to whom they should vote for.
Even YSR Congress party did the same this time and its parliamentary party leader V Vijay Sai Reddy did personal care and explained to all the MLAs as to how to cast their first preferential votes.
However, Naidu did not make any such attempt. May be he thought all the MLA were aware of the voting pattern or he had lost interest in the Rajya Sabha elections as the result was a foregone conclusion.
Had he conducted the mock-polling for the TDP MLAs, he would have avoided facing such an embarrassing situation!