TDP staring at leadership crisis?

With former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu facing time in prison and amid claims that his son Nara Lokesh will also be arrested by the CID, questions are being raised about who will lead the main opposition in the state—the TDP—into polls that are just seven months away from now.

Ever since the arrest of Naidu on September 9, his son Lokesh has taken charge of the party. Though there are many seniors in the TDP, Lokesh has been calling the shots. He has been busy arranging legal aid for his father’s release from the jail by talking to and roping in some of the country’s top lawyers like Sidharth Luthra and Harish Salve.

Further, to build a narrative at the national level that his father’s arrest was a politically motivated move, Lokesh has been camping in Delhi over the past one week. He has been also busy mustering support for his fight and from other political parties across the country.

Though none in the TDP is admitting it openly, it is also learnt that Lokesh has been trying to have an audience with BJP leaders to seek their support and explain his side of the case.

In the meantime, what will happen to the party if Lokesh is also arrested is what political circles in Andhra Pradesh are discussing. Lokesh has been active in politics since just before the 2014 polls. However, the Yuva Galam, an ambitious 4,000 km-plus walkathon, of which he has covered almost 2,700 km, has given him a new image among the party cadres.

Lokesh is no longer the soft, inaccessible person he used to be. He is now a tough, vocal, assertive, grassroots-level leader aiming to transform into a mass leader. He seems to have come of age with a transformation that is hard to miss.

“It appears the game plan of the YSRCP supremo Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is to create a leadership crisis in the main opposition TDP by putting Naidu and his son Lokesh both behind the bars. Running a party from the front and also especially as the polls approach, from poll management to candidate selection and also utilisation of resources like money and men properly, is not an easy task. In the absence of Naidu and Lokesh, the TDP would have to face a leadership crisis. Stature of other leaders like K Atchenanidu, Ch Ayyanapatrudu, and Hindupur MLA Nandamuri Balakrishna, and others are no match for father-and-son duo in leading the party and acting as a nucleus bringing in warring groups and factions in the party together,” political commentator and analyst Duggaraju Srinivas told Deccan Herald.

A regional party, the TDP can’t run without someone from the Nara or Nandamuri families at the helm.

“If at all that happens (Lokesh's arrest) we will rope in Nara Brahmani. She will lead the party. TDP has seen many crises in the past and emerged victorious. We will overcome this one too,” former minister and TDP politburo member Ch Ayyanapatrudu said at a meeting recently.

Brahmani was seen leading a statewide candlelight protest rally recently against Naidu’s arrest. Brahmani is Lokesh’s wife and also daughter of Hindupur MLA and actor Nandamuri Balakrishna, son of TDP founder, N T Rama Rao.