Telugu Desam Party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu normally does not react very seriously when leaders quit his party and defect into another party.
He will make all efforts to convince them to stay back in the party – he will send a team of negotiators to prevail upon them to withdraw their plans. If required, he would call such leaders to his house to speak to them personally.
But Naidu would never make any public statement or an appeal openly to such defectors, requesting them to stay back.
Even when his trusted lieutenants like Sujana Chowdary and CM Ramesh left the party, Naidu did not react in public, though it is a different matter that the TDP chief himself had sent them into the BJP.
In the case of resignation of Gannavaram MLA Vallabhaneni Vamsi, Naidu went out of the way to make a public appeal, requesting him to reconsider his decision and assuring him that the party in general and he, in particular, would stand by the MLA in the hour of crisis.
The media managers of Naidu leaked Naidu’s letters to Vamsi twice in a span of a few hours.
On Monday morning, Naidu wrote yet another letter to Vamsi stating that the latter had earlier fought fiercely against injustice, with the support from the party and party president.
“In the same manner, the party and myself are solidly behind you in this current fight against injustice of present YSRCP government,” he said.
Naidu also said he was entrusting Vijayawada MP Kesineni Nani and former MP Konakalla Narayana Rao with the task of coordinating with Vamsi and chalk out an action plan for a united fight against the high handedness of the present government.
“I assure you to sort out all other problems (sic),” Naidu said.
In his earlier letter, too, Naidu told him that quitting politics would not stop the harassment and vindictive political actions unleashed by the YSRCP and their stooges in the government.
“I think resigning or quitting politics is not correct solution,” he said.
Obviously, Naidu is very much worried that losing an MLA, that too, a trusted loyalist like Vamsi, at this stage would trigger an exodus of many other MLAs from the party and the loss would be irreparable.
Hence, he has gone out of the way to appease Vamsi to stay back!
