Once bitten, twice shy, Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu has realised that there is no use of last minute defectors into the party before the elections, as they would not sail with the party when it is in trouble.
Naidu made it clear that there is no place for last minute defectors from other parties into the TDP.
“I will be strict hereafter. However strong they might be in their respective constituencies, I will not take them into the party. Instead, I will groom a new leadership,” he said, while admitting former MLC Devagudi Narayan Reddy and his son Bhupesh Reddy from Jammalamadugu into the TDP.
He said certain leaders would sense the defeat of the party they had joined earlier and would make an attempts to jump into the TDP.
“I will not entertain them. Only those who had been with the party during the troubled times would have recognition,” he said.
Naidu admitted that he had not followed this policy in the past and admitted several last-minute defectors from other parties.
“But now, we are recording every minute thing about leaders – who they are, what their strengths are and what their loyalties are,” he said.
Apparently, Naidu was making reference to the leaders like former minister C Adinarayana Reddy, who defected to the BJP and P Ramasubba Reddy, who defected to the YSR Congress party in Kadapa district.
Defections are very common in politics and it would only be foolish to expect the leaders to be loyal to any party. For that matter, Naidu himself was a defector from the Congress to the TDP.
So, why blame others?