Senior IPS officer and former joint director of Central Bureau of Investigation V V Lakshminarayana has applied for voluntary retirement and it is only a matter of time that his application would get approved and he would be free to announce his future course of action.
But in private conversations with the media, Lakshminarayana hinted that he would be joining politics. And now, it is an open secret. The question is what the options before him are and which party he would join.
He would definitely not join the Congress party, which has completely lost its ground in Andhra Pradesh. There is a talk that he might join the Bharatiya Janata Party, but one doubts whether he will take such a big risk at a time when the BJP is being viewed as a big villain in the state.
There was also a talk that Lakshminarayana might join the Jana Sena Party of Pawan Kalyan because of Kapu factor and even the actor, too, welcomed him. However, the ex-CBI officer ruled it out openly.
And the question of joining the YSR Congress party does not arise because it was Lakshminarayana who sent party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy to jail and the YSRC leaders and cadre see him as a villain.
And there is also a talk that he might float his own political party. But one wonders whether he has the capacity, money and man power to run a political party.
Moreover, there is hardly any space for a new party in Andhra, as Jana Sena Party is also getting ready to fight the elections, which was originally confined to only two parties – TDP and YSRC.
Now, the last option is joining the TDP. There is already an allegation that Lakshminarayana had secret connections with the TDP bosses and it was to benefit TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu that he had sent Jagan to jail.
At one stage, there was a talk that Lakshminarayana was a relative of TDP legislator Payyavula Kesav, but later it turned out to be wrong.
There is no surprise if he joins the TDP, but analysts say it would in fact boomerang on both Naidu as well as Lakshminaryana.
It would definitely give a weapon to Jagan to attack Naidu by substantiating his earlier allegations that Naidu had colluded with Lakshminarayana to witch-hunt him. So, Naidu might not take the risk of admitting Lakshminarayana into party, the analysts argue.
However, there is one possibility. Lakshminarayana might float a political action forum, rather than a political party, which would work for the TDP indirectly.
He would launch a movement against corruption and would give lengthy lectures all over the state explaining the cases against Jagan and appealing to the people not to vote for him. He would take enough care that he would not sound pro-TDP.
Thus Naidu would use him as his trump card to take on the opposition parties, say analysts.
