It is a known fact that Telugu Desam Party general secretary and Andhra Pradesh IT minister Nara Lokesh is the heir apparent of his father and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
In fact, Lokesh has already earned the notoriety of being an extra constitutional authority in the chief minister’s office and in the absence of his father, there were instances of Lokesh holding the forte of the CMO and conducting the official meetings of those departments which he is no way concerned with.
But, surprisingly, Lokesh has kept himself away from the party campaign in the Nandyal, which is going to by-elections on Wednesday.
Since he is the party general secretary, everybody thought he would lead the party campaign from the front, since his father Naidu would not be in a position to spend time in the campaign because of his pre-occupations.
Naidu campaigned for TDP candidate Bhuma Brahmananda Reddy only in the last two days. Though as many as six ministers and a large number of MLAs camped in Nandyal, the absence of Lokesh raised many an eyebrow.
Sources said Naidu did not want to expose Lokesh to the Nandyal bypoll and ruin his political career, since the TDP is facing a tough fight there.
Any defeat of the TDP in the by-elections will cause immense harm to Lokesh’s political career, since it might fetch him the iron leg brand.
And Lokesh himself understood the tough position of the TDP in Nandyal, when he visited the constituency in the second week of July.
Realising that the TDP might be on the losing side, he preferred to stay back in Amaravati and monitor things from there, instead of taking a plunge into the field to face ignominy!
