When Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu dropped his son and IT minister Nara Lokesh Babu from the list of delegates touring the US on official visit, it raised many an eyebrow.
Many believed that Naidu was apprehensive that the inexperience of Lokesh would be exposed and he did not want his son to be a laughing stock in in the US.
However, sources say Naidu did not want to spoon-feed Lokesh but want that the latter should develop into an efficient administrator with independent thinking.
That is precisely why Naidu left Lokesh back home, so that he would freely interact with the officials, convene official review meetings and learn from senior officials on important administrative matters.
When Naidu is around, Lokesh will not get the opportunity and hence, in his absence, Lokesh would be able to understand how to handle administrative affairs.
Apart from learning from the higher officials, Lokesh will also take some independent decisions, such as reaching out to people through social media and understanding their problems.
In fact, Naidu was impressed with the way Lokesh is responding to people’ s grievances through social media and asked the other ministers to follow his son.
Naidu’s absence has taught Lokesh another lesson that all his ministerial colleagues breathe it easy when the boss is not around, as a result of which the administration has come to a halt. So, Lokesh has started going to Secretariat regularly to keep the officials on alert.
As part of grooming his son as a better administrator, Naidu also appointed Lokesh as a member in the ministerial committee on capital land development. That would give him a wider exposure, say party sources.
