What is Chandrababu Naidu Afraid Of?

Kommineni Srinivasa Rao

One thing is very obvious—Chandrababu Naidu is getting rattled by just about everything, but what is at the root of this fear, is still uncertain. If 2 MLAs meet and chat for some time, he gets paranoid about it and assumes that they would have been talking about him. This only shows the depths to which the TDP has degenerated as a political party.

It is believed that YSRCP MLA Buggana Rajendranath Reddy and BJP MLA Akula Satyanarayana had lunch together. This set wheels of panic in motion in the TDP camp at the highest levels. Chandrababu swung into action claiming that this was a conspiracy against him and media outlets loyal to the TDP kept repeating his paranoid version ad nauseam. In the end both the MLAs in question, Buggana and Satyanarayana had to clarify. They pointed out that they were not politicians alone, but were also friends. In spite of that, Chandrababu, Lokesh and Yanamala remained unrelenting in their wild allegations, making us wonder what level these politicians of the ruling party were prepared to stoop to! One can ignore Lokesh as a youngster who spent some time in the US and has no experience worth the name. What about Chandrababu Naidu, who claims that he is 40 years old veteran in politics? What about Yanamala who has more than 35 years of experience? Yanamala, who is the Finance minister of AP, claims he came to know that as PAC chairman, Buggana gave some documents to the BJP leaders and that this would constitute to breach of assembly privilege if it is true! This means that as a minister, he makes unverified claims!

Buggana responded in an interesting manner. He asked the chief minister and his associates why they were quaking in their boots? If Yanamala had been specific in identifying the documents in question, it would have been something else. Nothing is a secret in public life unless it is a question of national security or is against the interests of the state. If information relating to some scam had been passed on, there is nothing amiss about it. Buggana has denied any such thing.

Chandrababu Naidu spoke as if a big controversy was being created about nothing. He is fuelling rumours that Buggana went to Delhi to meet the BJP leadership and went to the extent of putting videos of Buggana and Akula seen together, in circulation.

The general impression about Chandrababu is that he utters falsehoods all the time. For a chief minister to be indulging in such low-level propaganda is unfortunate. Chandrababu had at one time described Modi as a mass murderer ("nara hantakudu"), but then bent backwards to please him and form an alliance in 2014. Similarly, speculation was rife at one time that Chandrababu had secret parleys with senior leaders such as Chidambaram, among others. At the height of the Agrigold controversy, how did the AP CM meet Amar Singh, who is reputed to be a political power broker? While he is trying to kick up a storm over an imaginary connection between the YSRCP and BJP? Why is Chandrababu silent on how a BJP minister's wife was nominated to the TTD board? Why did he sail along with the BJP when it did not deliver on any promise for 4 years, despite what Venkaiah Naidu and Modi had said. Why did Venkaiah Naidu and Chandrababu go around the state felicitating each other? Why was Arun Jaitley brought to Amaravati and honoured?

Chandrababu and his followers are so pre-occupied with mud-slinging that they seem to forget to what depths they are lowering the level of public discourse. Politics is not all about betrayals and cheating at the cost of human values. Integrity lends strength to a political leader and the system. To think that one of Chandrababu's most trusted lieutenants of yesteryears, Mothkupalli Narsimhulu, criticised the AP CM in the strongest of terms is in itself a reflection of where Chandrababu stands today. One hopes that Chandrababu will not turn Andhra Pradesh into a state associated with cheating and betrayal.