Amid growing discontent within the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), president N. Chandrababu Naidu is promising reforms that could lead to the resurgence of the regional party that took Andhra Pradesh by storm in 1982. “In the next three years, we will usher in changes in such a way that the party will be vibrant for the next 30 years,” declared Naidu somewhat wishfully on the TDP’s Formation Day on March 29. Asserting that no one could “wipe out the party” he has promised to promote young people and exhorted activists to rededicate themselves to the cause.
Infusing young blood to make a comeback in the absence of a charismatic or dynamic leadership is a daunting challenge. Though he joined after its founding, Naidu has used his organisational skills assiduously to build the TDP for its founder and his father-in-law N.T. Rama Rao (NTR). As a Congress minister, he had been defeated in the 1983 assembly polls that first brought the TDP to power, but within weeks of NTR storming the Congress bastion, Naidu switched sides and devoted himself to building up the party organisation, positioned as its powerful general secretary. He ultimately dislodged NTR as chief minister, taking control of the government as well as the TDP in 1995.
Naidu’s commitment notwithstanding, party insiders doubt whether he, already in his 70s (he turns 71 on April 20), can have a battle trim TDP ready for the 2024 assembly and Lok Sabha polls. They say that the best days for the party are perhaps over, recalling that the TDP was the first regional party to become the main opposition in the eighth Lok Sabha from 1984 to 1989 and that Naidu was the longest serving chief minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh (14 years).They believe it will be a Herculean task for the party in the face of the aggressive strategy of the ruling Yuvajana Sramika Ruythu Congress (YSRC) to retain popular appeal with sops and welfare measures. And there are other constraints. Naidu has never encouraged middle level leadership in the TDP though he launched several initiatives to broaden the party’s base by adopting social engineering techniques to woo different communities. Moreover, analysts point out, he has failed to shed the pro-Kamma bias tag that the TDP has worn since the days of NTR.
To top it off, the string of electoral defeats since the 2019 assembly poll debacle, including the unprecedented loss in the recent local body elections, has driven the party into an existential crisis. Naidu’s leadership may not face an imminent threat, but his declaration on the party’s 40th Formation Day at Mangalagiri is in line with the challenges the party will face to survive as an effective opposition, whether or not it regains power in 2024. Apart from the ruling YSRC pulling out all stops to ensure that it gets a second term in a row, there is the grim prospect for the TDP of the BJP growing in strength along with the regional Jana Sena Party.
A crucial test is on the cards in the April 17 byelection for the Tirupathi Lok Sabha seat, reserved for Scheduled Castes, caused by the death of the sitting YSRC member B. Durgaprasad Rao last year. As of now, it appears a facile win for the YSRC riding high on its landslide triumph in the local body polls. It is confident of winning, eyeing a majority of over 300,000 votes, up from 228,000 in 2019. The TDP, fielding a time-testedcandidate and a former MP Panabaka Lakshmi, is determined to make a strong fight by deputing 170 in-charges and coordinators to mobilize voters. Coincidentally, it is in Naidu’s native Chittoor district though it does not include his Kuppam assembly constituency.
TDP insiders admit the party can claim a consolation victory if it can at least minimise the YSRC’s winning margin, which has a commanding lead among the Scheduled Castes who constitute a majority chunk of the voters. The BJP-Jana Sena combine may throw a spanner in the works for the TDP. Clearly, there are both internal and external challenges for the TDP’s survival as the principal opposition in Andhra Pradesh.
Naidu, who had elevated himself as the national president of the TDP in 2015 has to come to terms with the ground realities and also put an end to curbing middle rung leadership in the party for it to make a comeback. “The party needs a host of leaders from the grassroots level, not just N. Balakrishna (NTR’s son), N.Lokesh (Naidu’s son) and Junior NTR (an actor grandson of NTR) and they will come from all communities and regions,” says senior party leader and a founding member G. Butchaiah Choudary.
There is a clamour to induct Junior NTR and assign a pivotal role to him in order to draw mass support for the TDP, but he is reluctant on two counts—his successful acting career and the apprehensions shared by many, including in the TDP, that it is not possible to stall the electoral prospects of YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy getting a second term in a row as chief minister in 2024.
