During the recent assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu made a whirlwind tour of entire state and campaigned for several party candidates personally.
However, he did not campaign in some constituencies for paucity of time and in others as a strategic move. One such constituency is Gajuwaka in Visakhapatnam. Though Naidu addressed several roads shows in Vizag, he did not enter Gajuwaka segment.
At a review meeting of the party held in Visakhapatnam on Friday, Naidu revealed the reason for not campaigning in Gajuwaka.
The local party leaders brought to the notice of Naidu that there were 30,000-odd active TDP workers in Gajuwaka and they were all demoralised with Naidu skipping the campaign during the elections.
The TDP chief said he did not campaign in Gajuwaka for a specific reason.
“It was here, Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan was contesting. Had I campaigned here I would have to criticise him in my speeches. That would not have been dignified on my part. I expected that such a gesture would have a positive impact on the TDP all over the state,” he said.
He, however, said the TDP had no collusion whatsoever with the Jana Sena Party in the elections.
“If I had any such idea, I would have expressed it openly and entered into an alliance with the Jana Sena,” he said.
Naidu said situation would have been different had Pawan Kalyan won the Gajuwaka seat and entered the assembly.
It clearly showed that the TDP had some sort of unwritten understanding with Jana Sena.
By not adopting a clear stand against the TDP but by choosing to target YSR Congress party, Pawan Kalyan created troubles for not only the TDP, but also his own Jana Sena!
