For the last few days, the entire Telugu Desam Party battalion, starting from party president N Chandrababu Naidu to his son Nara Lokesh to local party leaders in Krishna district made a hue and cry over the alleged conduct of Casino programme in the convention centre belonging to state civil supplies minister Kodali Nani at Gudivada during the Sankranti festivities.
The TDP leaders brought to light video clippings of the casino, pictures of Kodali’s followers taking part in the programme and even the flight tickets and accommodation particulars of the cheer girls from Goa who were brought for dances during the festivities.
The TDP leaders led by Buddha Venkanna also made an attempt to go on a fact-finding mission to Gudivada to expose the alleged gambling programme in Kodali’s convention centre and courted arrest.
Even the BJP leaders made a futile attempt to hold a parallel cultural programme in Gudivada.
But one person who did not make any comment or criticism against Kodali was TDP parliament member Kesineni Srinivas alias Kesineni Nani.
Though Gudivada doesn’t come under his parliament constituency, it is very close to Vijayawada and most of the participants in the Casino programme were from Vijayawada.
Yet, Kesineni did not utter a word against the entire controversy and come to the support of the TDP president, despite the fact that Naidu has been strongly supporting him despite resistance from his rivals like Buddha Venkanna and Nagul Meera.
He did not even issue a statement when the police arrested the TDP leaders in Gudivada and the YSRC leaders made abusive comments against Naidu and other TDP leaders.
The reasons behind his unusual silence are not exactly known, but Kesineni chose to remain silent after his rivals within the party like Buddha Venkanna and Gadde Rammohan Rao took up the case and fought against Kodali.
It clearly shows that Kesineni is giving his personal rivalry more importance than the party issue. Since Buddha Venkanna took up the fight against Kodali, the MP decided to stay away from it, since it would give mileage to Venkanna.
“When Kesineni took up the case of Kapu leader Vangaveeti Radhakrishna, there was no support from Buddha Venkanna or Nagul Meera. So, this time, Kesineni chose to keep away from Kodali controversy,” a party leader observed.