Those who read the “Kothapaluku” column written by Andhra Jyothy chairman Vemuri Radhakrishna in his daily on Sunday were surprised to see him predicting a massive victory for Telangana Rashtra Samithi led by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in the ensuing early elections to the state assembly.
He not only predicted that the TRS would get a minimum of 80 assembly seats comfortably, but also criticized the proposed alliance between the Telugu Desam Party and the Congress party in Telangana.
He described it as a suicidal step. In a way, it appeared he is giving a friendly advice to TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu.
For those who know Radhakrishna as an out and out TDP supporter and close confidant of Naidu, his comments came as a real surprise. But sources say there is a hidden agenda behind his stand.
First of all, Andhra Jyothy has been adopting a pro-TRS stand in Telangana for the last three years (after Radhakrishna built bridges with KCR), besides being pro-TDP in Andhra. His daily has been getting massive advertisements from KCR government all these years.
Secondly, there has been a talk that the KCR government has resolved the litigation in Radhakrishna’s land allotted to him in the past for construction of a second office for Andhra Jyothy in the journalist’s colony in Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad.
Already, the daily has been running in a building in Ashwini Enclave, which had faced allegations of lacking proper building rules and also fire safety norms. In fact, there was a fire mishap in the building a couple of years ago and KCR personally visited the building.
Subsequently, all the issues were resolved and since then, Andhra Jyothy has been writing favourable stories for TRS. Now with the latest issue also being resolved, Radhakrishna went out of the way to predict massive victory for the TRS in the elections.
At the same time, Radhakrishna has to protect the interests of the TDP in Andhra as well. If the TDP has a tie-up with the Congress, it will hit the prospects of the TRS to some extent, which Radhakrishna does not want.
At the same time, he is worried that an alliance with the Congress will hit the TDP prospects in Andhra, which also he does not want. So, he is cautioning Naidu against the TDP-Congress alliance in Telangana!