Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has been maintaining strategic silence over the overwhelming response to the Praja Sankalpam padayatra of YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, which has entered 16th day on Friday.
Though there were some aggressive counter-attacks by the TDP leaders and ministers here and there to the allegations being made by Jagan during his padayatra, Naidu reportedly asked them to maintain restraint and not indulge in wild reactions.
“Let us ignore Jagan and focus on our work,” Naidu is learnt to have told the party leaders.
It means Naidu either must be taking it easy with Jagan or wants to work out counter strategies to neutralise Jagan’s impact.
In fact, sources say Naidu has not ignoring Jagan’s padayatra completely and has been getting intelligence reports from time to time.
He is also discussing with senior party leaders close to him on the strategies to be adopted by the TDP.
He reportedly asked the party leaders to identify the areas where Jagan is growing stronger and focus on strengthening the party in those constituencies.
Wherever Jagan has completed the padayatra, Naidu wants to focus on those areas, identify the key leaders who can tilt the balance in favour of the YSRC and trap them in the name of political reunification.
At the same time, in all the areas which Jagan has toured, Naidu asked the party leaders and officials to identify the issues concerning people and resolve them at the earliest by releasing special grants, so as to neutralise the impact of Jagan.
He announced that those who worked hard would be rewarded with posts. He suggested formation of Party Mitra and Mahila Mitra for every 30 voters and that they be entrusted them with booth level responsibilities, besides promoting welfare schemes in a big way.
He also suggested that the leaders explain to the people that the image of the state was being damaged due to Jagan whose name was involved in various scams such as Paradise papers.
The TDP chief directed party leaders to complete formation of 5,497 booth-level committees and publicise welfare schemes.
