Surprising as it might sound, Telangana Telugu Desam Party legislator from Kodangal constituency in Mahbubnagar district A Revanth Reddy has turned out to be the most popular leader among the party cadre in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states, perhaps much more than the party boss N Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh.
It was pretty evident at the just concluded TDP’s biennial mega ritual Mahanadu held at Visakhapatnam.
Many felt that Mahanadu was mainly focussing on projecting TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh as the future icon of the party, rather than discussing the burning issues confronting the state.
Instructions were given to the party organisers to see that Lokesh got the maximum coverage in the media, apart from generating loud applause from the audiences whenever he rose to speak.
However, there was not much enthusiasm among the party cadre when Lokesh was addressing. Though his speech at Mahanadu was relatively impressive compared to his previous speeches, there were no big cheers or applauses from the audiences.
On the contrary, the entire auditorium reverberated with loud cheers when Revanth Reddy rose to speak.
The party activists raised slogans describing him as a hero and he gave a powerful speech taking a vow to bring the TDP to power in Telangana as well.
Naturally, the response Revanth had got was not taken kindly by Naidu or Lokesh. While Naidu tried to cover up his embarrassment by looking into some papers, Lokesh was found discussing with other leaders without paying attention to Revanth.
And once Revanth finished his speech after 25 minutes, there were claps and cheers all around!
