The no-confidence motion moved by the Telugu Desam Party in Lok Sabha against the Narendra Modi government on Friday is believed to have brought a lot of damage to party president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and hit the party’s prospects in the forthcoming assembly elections.
The very fact that Naidu had to rush to New Delhi on Saturday to address the national media to give a reply to the attack made by the Prime Minister during the debate on no-trust motion itself shows the panic situation prevailing in the TDP.
Though TDP members Galla Jayadev, K Rammohan Naidu and Kesineni Srinivas could put forth the arguments of the TDP effectively, there was no support from other parties as they focussed mostly on their respective state issues.
Even the Telangana Rashtra Samithi of the neighbouring Telugu state did not come to the support of the TDP and even opposed the special status demand.
And when it came to his turn to reply, Modi virtually took Naidu to task for trying to gain political mileage by taking U-turn on special category status demand in order to deny the political advantage to the YSR Congress party.
“By saying so, Modi clearly sent a message to the people of Andhra Pradesh that Naidu was never serious about the special category status and instead agreed for the special financial package. And it was only YSR Congress party which has been sincerely fighting for the status and Naidu took a U-turn only to deny political benefits to the opposition party,” an analyst observed.
The way Modi compared Naidu with KCR has also brought down the TDP president’s image among the people.
“Modi virtually humiliated Naidu by lacking any vision on the development. He clearly conveyed to the people of AP that Naidu was more interested in politics and whatever development that is taking place in AP is only because of the Centre’s help,” the analyst said.
