Telugu Desam Party - And It's Long Term Decay Part-II

From 2004, when TDP became opposition, both party and the leadership failed to understand the reasons for the defeat fully. With Eenadu first and then Andhra Jyothy starting direct attack almost immediately against the YS Rajasekhar Reddy government, Chandra Babu Naidu viewed world through these two papers only. At the same time, having realised that too much focus on Technology sector costed them dearly, CBN made some feable attempts to adddress the groups he ignored, specially farmers.

Meanwhile, the Telangana became an emotional issue. Congress having won with the alliance of the Telangana Rastra Smithi (TRS) moved the decision on Telangana into a perennial and complex loops. Congress party in the state was split and it turned imotional. As weeks and years passed, it essentially became emotional war between YSR Group and the rest in the Congress party.

As political heat reached pinnacle on Telangana issue, Naidu was in a deep dialemma as he was never in favour of a seperate state. Telugu Desam was symbol of unified Andhra Pradesh. But, as Congress was battling out in the charged environment, canny Naidu seen an opportunity as he was put under deep pressure with in the party by the then top leaders like Devender Goud. Finally, when Goud left the party in the name of Telengana, Naidu's options were getting limited. Sensing the political style of Naidu, many top leaders from other regions have also started deserting the party. And, Babu looked very vulnerable and succummed to the pressure. On fine day, he took a disasterous decision in favour of Telengana and most disastrously, joined hands with TRS - whose credibility was hitting all time low.

Naidu's campaign for the political mileage was also deeply fractured. He was always reactive to the decisions of the Congress government than being proctive in addressing the issues that were faced by poor, working class and farming. It was so ironic that, when the inflation reached all time high before the elections, Naidu's failed to highlight the plight through the party campaigns and rather left the propaganda to Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy. This probably is the case, with most of the issues that would have helped Naidu to gain political mileage in the course of 5 years of Congress rule.

With the arrival of Loksatta and Prajarajyam Parties, Naidu and TDP landed in identity crisis. With Chiranjeevi drawing huge crowds at rallies and road shows, Naidu was a worried man and started looking to counter the image of Megastar. He brought Nandamuri Balakrishna and NTR Jr to the campaign but in the end both these star campaigers failed midway. But CBN failed to realise, YS Rajasekhar Reddy was very cool and instead of looking for cine glamour, he was working seriously on fundamentals. Panicked, Naidu announced cash transfer schemes and free colour TV's in a desperate attempt to attract the core voters, who he thought were not getting attracted to TDP or going away. Congress came back with credibility slogan and successfully passed on the message that these are mare poll gimmick's and given the evidence on how he scrapped Rs2/Kg rice schemes.

TDP, slowly but surely became a family party. Nandamuri family - Balakrishna, Harikrishna, NTR Jr, Taraka Ratna, Kalyana Ram and Naidu's son - Lokesh Naidu became the core team and public face of the party. Only outsider, Roja proved to be a liability for the party. Added to this, Naidu's autocratic style and poor listening skills - made many top leaders to leave the party in favour of PRP, TRS or Congress. It might be pertinent to note that it was TDP, which lost huge number of top and long standing leaders than any other party prior to the 2009 elections.

Naidu's decision to form the mahakootami or Grand Alliance of the four parties with fundamental idealogical differences on many core issues was the fatal errror. This firmly moved TDP away from it's core idealogies and it became too obvious that, Naidu was in a panic and desperate mode to gain the power and deny Congress or YSR another term.

Finally when the d-day came, Naidu lost the elections.

With two successive elections defeats and huge shift from the party idealogies on which party was formed more than 25 years ago, TDP is now a party in decay mode. Nara Chandrababu Naidu lives in a state of denial and never accepts responsibility for this disaster. While he was Chief Minister he fired a number of officials for simple mistakes and made them accountable. But, why he does not apply same rule when he ruined the party?

Naidu suffers from several complexities. He used the name of NT Rama Rao and his children but, he never subscribed to NTR's vision or idealogies while in power or outside.

With arrival of PRP, though it suffered badly in the elections, with 17% share - PRP is going to be a big challenger for the TDP in next elections. From the messages that are coming from Chiru- it is clear that Megastar accepted the resposibility for the debacle, and promised to look deep into the issues and address them. If that happens, Chiru's political graph is going to raise. Chiru already sidelined his brothers and probably remove Allu Aravind as public face of the party. Unfortunately, CBN wanted to bring his son Lokesh Naidu (to counter YS Jaganmohan Reddy), and keep Nadamuri clan as his campaign ammunition. If N Jayaprakash Narayan lives up to his words and delivers at Kukatpally and in Assmembly, many of the TDP voters would move away from this party in favour of Lok Satta.

For those people who consider TDP is their (Kamma) Party or those who are with in the party and committed to the success of TDP in 2014, or for all those party sympathisers - it is time to think and consider that Nara Chandrababu Naidu is not the right person to lead the party for such a grand victory.

Naidu is a basically a good Manager or a Back room operator. But he is not Leader who can lead the party and take responsibility for failures as well as for victories. What party needs is to, revisit and revitalise the core idealogies and campaign on the same principles in today context as NT Rama Rao faught for the gretest victory in 1983.

After watching Naidu from the front for 15 years, I am sure he is not the right person. In the end it is choice between survival / revival of TDP and Naidu as a leader. If the later is the choice, then Party decay going into acceleration mode.