Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is said to be in second thoughts in admitting former joint director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and retired IPS officer V V Lakshminarayna into the party.
If everything was to go according to planning, Lakshminarayana would have joined the party by now. He had already held talks with minister for higher education Ganta Srinivasa Rao and talked to Naidu.
There were reports that Naidu is likely to field Lakshminarayana from Bhimili assembly constituency and shift his son Nara Lokesh to Visakhapatnam (north). Ganta, who is representing Bhimili at present, will be fielded from Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency.
However, within hours of the reports leaking to media, YSR Congress party started taking advantage of the development to gain mileage in the elections.
The party leaders alleged that Lakshminarayana’s entry into the TDP lent credence to their suspicion that he was hand in glove with the TDP in foisting cases against YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy in 2012 and sending him to jail.
In the meantime, a letter leaked by the TDP leaders about former Enforcement Director Karnal Singh to former CBI director Alok Varma in May 2017 exposing a quid pro quo deal involving Jagan has also added to the negative talk.
The YSRC leaders suspect that the letter was leaked deliberately by Lakshminarayana to help the TDP sling mud at Jagan during the elections.
In a bid to avoid this negative propaganda, Naidu is learnt to have kept in abeyance the entry of Lakshminaryana into the TDP.
It remains to be seen he will really stick to his decision or take the ex-CBI JD into the party at the eleventh hour.
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