The political observers are amused at the Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu demanding the central government to confer 'Bharat Ratna', the country’s highest civilian award, on the TDP founder and former Chief Minister late N T Rama Rao.
The audacity with which Naidu makes this demand is surprising and makes a mockery of the public memory.
It must be reminded that Naidu was the “King Maker” in national politics for nine long years, first in the United Front government from 1996 to 1998 and then as a key outside supporter of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government from 1998 to 2004.
In both these governments, Naidu had a major say and there was no way his word could be ignored by the ruling coalitions.
In fact, the TDP chief often claims that it was he who had chosen the prime ministerial candidates and even the president A P J Abdul kalam. For a man who could choose PM candidates, recommending the name of NTR for Bharat Ratna should not have been a problem at all.
Everyone within and outside TDP knows that Naidu was never keen on lobbying for Bharat Ratna for NTR as long as he called the shots at the Centre.
Now that he is out of power, he is demanding the Congress-led UPA to confer the honour on NTR. How can he expect the political rival like Congress to confer the highest civilian honour on NTR when the friendly alliances in the past could not do it.
Moreover, everyone knows what sort of mental anguish and pain that NTR had undergone in the last days of his life after being dethroned by Naidu.
Even the day before he died, NTR had addressed a press conference and breathed fire against Naidu and dubbed his son-in-law as the most unscrupulous and heartless politician.
