Andhra Pradesh IT and HRD minister Nara Lokesh seems to be gradually stepping into the shoes of his father and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and paving way for his anointment as the latter’s heir apparent in the party and the government.
Though everybody inside and outside the party is aware that Lokesh will succeed his father one day, it seems Naidu is in a hurry to promote his son as his successor and is training him on how to lobby with the powers-that-be in New Delhi.
It was evident from the way Naidu is taking Lokesh along with him for every programme and giving him more importance than deputy chief minister and Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan.
He even took Lokesh to Davos trip and Singapore tour to help him familiarise with international leaders.
And on Monday, Naidu sent Lokesh to Delhi to meet various Union ministers to discuss the issues pertaining to the state.
Though Lokesh had been to Delhi in the past, too, and met leaders, but in his personal capacity but not to deal with the government issues.
In fact, Lokesh is only a minister for IT and education, but he dealt with various subjects in Delhi which are not related to his ministry. This clearly shows how Lokesh is emerging as de facto chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.
On Monday, Lokesh met several Union ministers including petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, fertiliser minister J P Nadda, ports minister Sarbanand Sonowal, roads and highway minister Nitin Gadkari and finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman.
He took up a wide range of issues with these central ministers including BPLC refinery project, Deepam 2.0 scheme, external collaboration for various state projects for Data City, AI centre of excellence, Dugarajapatnam port, highway projects and urea scarcity in the state.
“He hasn’t touched one major subject – that of forests and environment – which are related to Pawan Kalyan. Maybe, he thought it would upset the deputy chief minister,” an analyst in Delhi said.
