It is quite obvious that TDP president and former Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu is making a desperate attempt to give a push to his son and party general secretary Nara Lokesh, so that he would be projected as the chief ministerial candidate by next elections.
But unfortunately, Lokesh has not proved himself a leader worth leading a political party, let alone governing a state.
He has no takers even within the TDP, forget about the people who rejected him in the elections in Mangalagiri assembly constituency.
Many leaders like Vallabhaneni Vamsi, Devineni Avinash and Karanam Balaram had left the party throwing blame on Lokesh for his failure to give any leadership to the party. He is neither a good speaker nor a mass leader, they say.
Yet, Naidu continues to project Lokesh as the future leader of the party. It was evident from the way he asked Lokesh to tour different parts of the state to understand the people’s issues.
The ongoing tour of Lokesh in flood-hit areas of Godavari, Krishna and Guntur districts is part of this strategy.
However, many TDP leaders who are refusing to accept Lokesh’s leadership are playing truant during his tours in the districts.
These leaders include former ministers and former MLAs, who are disgruntled with the party leadership ignoring them in the distribution of party posts.
For example, during his recent visit to Anantapur, leaders like Payyavula Kesav kept themselves away from his tours. Apparently, Kesav was not happy for not being included in the TDP politburo.
On Monday, another prominent leader Peethala Sujatha was conspicuously absent in the tour of Lokesh in West Godavari to call in flood affected areas of Akiveedu. She was nowhere to be seen in the tour, though many of her followers attended the programme.
Sujatha, who represented Chintalapudi assembly constituency, had become a minister in Naidu cabinet between 2014 and 2018. However, she was not given the party ticket in 2019 again and it had gone to Karra Raja Rao. But the TDP lost the elections miserably with a huge margin of over 35,000 votes.
Since then, Sujatha has been keeping away from party activities. She expected that she would get some prominent posts in the TDP parliamentary constituency committees, but she did not get it. Her name did not figure even in the recently announced TDP committees.
Now, Sujatha is said to be upset and contemplating defecting to the ruling party. So far, there has not been any statement from her in this regard.