Old habits die hard. If a leader who had been associated with a political party for over two decades suddenly shifts his loyalty to another party, it will take for some time to get out of the original party’s hangover.
The same thing happened in case of industrialist-turned-politician Nama Nageshwar Rao, who was associated with the Telugu Desam party for nearly decades.
He was a prominent TDP leader till recently and represented the party in Lok Sabha from Khammam parliamentary constituency.
He even served as TDP parliamentary party leader between 2009 and 2014.
In the recent assembly elections in Telangana, Nama contested on TDP ticket from Khammam assembly constituency but lost to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi candidate Puvvada Ajay Kumar.
Now that the TDP is completely decimated in Telangana region, Nama had no option but to jump into the TRS.
Immediately, he was given the TRS ticket for Lok Sabha elections from Khammam. And he started his campaign in the right earnest.
But all these days, Nama had been used to asking the people to vote for cycle. Raising the slogan: “Cycle Gurthuke Mana Votu,” had become a habit for him. So, he is not able to forget the same, even after wearing the pink shawl.
In one of his public rallies, Nama was heard ending his speech with: “Cycle gurthuke mana votu” slogan, instead of “Karu gurthuke.. (Vote for car symbol). This happened not once or twice, but a quite a few times, in public rallies as well as media interviews.
So, Nama is yet to come out of the TDP hangover. Luckily for him, the TDP is not contesting the Khammam LS elections. So, his call will not cause any harm to him. But it clearly exposes the changing colours of our leaders!
