Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu went to the United States of America on Sunday on an official trip – in the name of addressing a United Nations conference on agriculture and also a meeting of the World Economic Forum among other things.
But he has also used the occasion to campaign for his party. He addressed a huge meeting of Telugu NRIs in the US at New York, where he gave them a call to vote for the TDP in the coming elections.
“Very soon, the NRIs are all going to get voting rights. They can exercise their franchise for their favourite candidates in their constituencies back home in India, while continuing to stay in the US,” he said.
Stating that voting the TDP back to power for a second term is a historic necessity for the state, Naidu claimed credit for so many thousands of Telugu people settling down in the US.
“Because of my efforts in the promotion of engineering education during my earlier stints in combined AP and my hardworking in bringing global IT companies to Hyderabad making it an IT-hub, you could come to the US in such a huge number. It is your duty to vote for the party that gave you so much,” Naidu asserted.
He went on to claim that the yellow flag of the TDP was fluttering in every corner of the world and the TDP was the only party that had got the credit.
There is nothing wrong for a political party president or leader to go the US to appease the NRIs. Even recently, YSR Congress party MLA Kona Raghupathi also went to the US and appealed to the YSR fans associations to campaign for the party in the coming elections.
But what is not acceptable is that Naidu went there in the capacity of the Andhra chief minister and not TDP president. It is an official trip and the expenditure is incurred from public exchequer.
So, it is not morally correct on the part of Naidu, who went to the US on public money, to use the occasion for campaigning for the TDP.
However, Naidu does it rather brazenly, unmindful of the criticism. For the last few months, Naidu has been organising meetings in Andhra in the name Dharma Porata Deeksha and Jnana Bheri, with the government money, but at all such meetings, he only appealed to the people to support the TDP and reject the secret alliance between the YSRC and the BJP!