For quite some time, Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has been putting his best efforts to promote his son Nara Lokesh as his heir apparent by 2019 elections, but the latter has turned out to be a big headache for his father.
The latest controversy over Nandi awards has brought a bad name for the Chandrababu Naidu government, thanks to some over-action by the jury members and involvement of some leaders like Rajahmundry MP Maganti Murali Mohan in making changes in the list at the last moment. And Naidu blindly approved the list without even looking into it.
There was a lot of criticism and no doubt, there were allegations of nepotism and casteism against Naidu.
But the controversy would have died down gradually after a few days and Naidu thought it would be better to keep silent rather than giving clarifications on it.
But Lokesh made it a mess by making unwarranted comments like calling Telugu film personalities as “non-resident Andhras,” and questioning whether those criticising awards had Aadhar cards and Voter ID cards in Andhra Pradesh.
Naturally, such comments evoked strong reactions from the film industry people and also social media groups, who lost no time in launching an attack not only on Lokesh but also on Naidu.
This has created a lot of embarrassment to Naidu, who is unable to understand how to bring maturity into the mind of Lokesh.
“If he cannot maintain restraint and display maturity on handling simple criticism on issues like Nandi awards, how can he tackle the criticism from the opposition on the issues of governing a state in future?
Even after becoming the minister, Lokesh is behaving childishly and if he is not controlled, he would spoil the image of not only his father but the entire party,” a senior TDP leader observed.
