Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s latest bonhomie with the Congress party and his attempts to bring all the non-BJP parties together has silenced several die-hard critics of Naidu in the Congress party.
One of them is senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member K V P Ramachandra Rao. Considered to be the “soul” of late chief minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, a bitter enemy of Naidu when he was alive, KVP, till recently, was going hammer and tongs at the chief minister.
He attacked Naidu inside and outside Parliament and wrote several open letters exposing the corruption and irregularities in the construction of Polavaram project.
He even moved the courts against Naidu taking over the project from the Centre for the sake of kickbacks.
But now, after Naidu shook hands with Congress president Rahul Gandhi and started speaking high of the Congress party, KVP has virtually gone silent. He has not made any critical comment against Naidu in the recent past.
On Monday, when the Congress party observed the birth anniversary of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, too, KVP did not utter a word against Naidu for removing the name of Indira Gandhi from Polavaram project, which was originally known as Indira Sagar Project.
At least, APCC president N Raghuveera Reddy made a mention of the change of the name by the TDP government. He said it was the Congress government led by YSR which had started works on Polavaram project.
On the other hand, the Congress leaders like former chief minister Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy chose to attack YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy saying that the latter had failed to play the role of an opposition leader in the state.
At least now, people are waiting to see whether KVP will demand that Naidu rename Polavaram after Indira Gandhi, since he has joined hands with the Congress party.
