Naidu-NTR Jr relations reach breaking point
Desam chief worried as two party men are wooed by YSR Congress
Hyderabad: The internal fissures in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) are becoming more pronounced by the day. Even as the party was trying to recover from the jolt of Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy wooing the Kamma community leaders of the party, a senior party leader from the Kapu community has also threatened to revolt.
The TDP suffered a blow with two key party leaders in Krishna district —Vijayawada unit president Vallabhaneni Vamsi and Gudivada legislator Kodali Nani — meeting Jagan amid speculation that they were planning to quit the party and join the YSR Congress.
It has sent ripples across the party and caused a rift in the NTR family because the two Kamma leaders were close followers of film star NTR Junior. Angered over relations of the two with Jagan, the TDP president Chandrababu Naidu has ignored NTR Junior completely.
Show cause notice
While Naidu has specifically requested another film star from the NTR family, Balakrishna, to campaign for the party in the by-elections, no such request has been made to NTR Junior. On the other hand clear indications have been sent to the party rank and file that the party was unhappy with NTR Junior as he was asking his supporters to work against the interests of the TDP.
To make this unhappiness even more clear, the party has also issued a show cause notice to Vamsi for meeting with Jagan.
With this the relations between Naidu and NTR Junior have reached breaking point. NTR Junior who had campaigned extensively for the party in the 2009 elections and was rewarded with tickets for a few of his nominees, fell out with Naidu of late.
His father and Rajya Sabha member Harikrishna has also fallen out with Naidu on the issue of future leadership of the party. While Naidu was seen as grooming his only son Lokesh as his political heir, Harikrishna wanted his son NTR Junior to be projected as a future leader of the party.
