With YSR Congress party going all out to capture Kuppam municipality in Chittoor district by hook or crook, Telugu Desam Party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu personally entered the scene to make last ditch efforts to save his prestige in his own assembly constituency.
Naidu has actually entrusted the task of TDP campaign to his son and party general secretary Nara Lokesh, who made whirlwind tour in Kuppam and tried to put up an aggressive postured during the campaign.
But Naidu later realised that Lokesh lacks the strategies and acceptability among the people, besides the strength required to tackle the political manipulations of the YSRC in Kuppam.
As state minister for panchayat raj Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy was personally monitoring the YSRC electioneering, the situation appeared to be slipping out of the hands of the TDP and Lokesh could not prove a match for the political rivals.
As a result, Naidu himself swung into action and has decided to take stock of the situation in Kuppam.
He held a teleconference with the local party leaders in the morning and gave them instructions on how to counter the rigging and impersonation by the YSRC, which is said to have shifted hundreds of voters from the neighbouring districts to Kuppam for bogus voting.
There were reports that Naidu would be leaving for Kuppam to personally monitor the polling situation. But the party sources said he won’t be going there but staying back in the headquarters and coordinate with the party ranks in Kuppam.
The TDP hopes that Naidu’s personal intervention would definitely turn the voters towards the party and prevent the complete rout of the party.
Naidu knows that if the TDP loses the Kuppam municipal polls, too, it would be a personal loss of prestige for him and it would make things difficult for him to win the seat in the next assembly elections.