The State Election Commission had issued notification for the local body – both urban and rural – elections to be held this month in Andhra Pradesh.
While the reservation issue for the BCs was stuck down by the courts, the ruling YSR Congress had announced that it would offer the promised 34 per cent seats for the BCs. However, the TDP is yet to come out on the issue.
Former chief minister, Opposition leader and TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu had said that his party would take this local body elections as an opportunity to teach a fitting lesson to the ruling party.
He had already asked the rank and file of his party to come together and win majority local bodies in the election.
Chandrababu Naidu had also made an open appeal to the people to support the TDP in this election and prove that the five crore people are against the government.
The TDP chief had opened a toll free number and a control room in his party office to receive complaints from the people on election irregularities.
While Naidu wants to prove his strength and the peoples’ opposition to the government in the election, the TDP’s media loyalist Vemuri Radhakrishna had come out with a view that it would be better for the TDP not to contest the elections.
As usual he targeted the AP government and chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy in his weekly column Kotha Paluku, where he hinted that contesting in the election would not be of much benefit to the TDP.
In a way, the column, besides dedicating major portion of it to spit venom at the YSR Congress and chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, Radhakrishna had sought to give his expert opinion to the TDP to keep off from the polls to avoid defeat and thus lose the chance to blame the government.
Whatever Chandrababu Naidu might decide on the election, Radhakrishna’s advise is a clear indication of Jagan Mohan Reddy’s rivals slowly withdrawing from the war.
Radhakrishna is wise enough, thanks to his media background and his wise associates, to make an assessment on the outcome of the results and felt that not contesting the elections would save the face.
However, for a politician like Chandrababu Naidu, not contesting the elections would not give him an edge as Opposition leader.
If contests and loses the battle, he would not have face to criticize the government in future. But, Chandrababu Naidu is above all these reasons and morals.
He criticizes the government every day unmindful of his humiliating defeat in the general election and he would continue to do so even if his party is routed in the local body polls.
The logic or the reason that Radhakrishna placed in his column is for the people who have some morals and not for the TDP chief or the Andhra Jyothi chief.
