Chandrababu Naidu vows not to return to Andhra Pradesh Assembly till 2024 elections

In a day of swift and dramatic developments, former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, on Friday, vowed not to reenter the state Assembly till after the 2024 elections.

Announcing his boycott decision, the opposition leader alleged that the YSRCP MLAs were dragging his wife (Nara Bhuvaneshwari) into political muck, attempting to assassinate her character.

Stating that he was pained by the continuous slur of the past two and half years, “now at the point of ugly targeting of my family,” 71-year-old Naidu walked out of the house even as his mic was reportedly cut midway. The TDP MLAs marched in tow.

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Later in a press conference telecast live on Telugu news channels, the three-time chief minister broke down in tears, saying that he was deeply hurt by the ruling party abuses.

It was perhaps the first time people in the two Telugu states saw Naidu sob. He holds the record of the longest-serving CM in united Andhra Pradesh and has served a full term as the first CM of truncated AP till May 2019.

Likening the house to Kaurava sabha, Naidu said that the YSRCP, which has received a massive public mandate of 151 out of 175 MLAs, is behaving like Bhasmasura “extending its destructive hand everywhere.”

“We would continue to agitate against the YSRCP misrule in the public arena,” Naidu said. The TDP could win only 23 MLA constituencies in the 2019 polls.

YSRCP chief Jaganmohan Reddy made a similar pledge in October 2017, while protesting “the unethical and unconstitutional defection” of over 20 YSRCP MLAs into the ruling TDP with four of them even made ministers by Naidu. Jagan was also miffed that the then speaker Kodela Siva Prasad was "disallowing his party's rightful space and time in the house proceedings."

After a 3648 KM padayatra crisscrossing the state ahead of the polls, Reddy returned to the assembly in June 2019 as the Chief Minister.

On Friday, Naidu disapproved of Speaker Tammineni Sitaram's “conduct not restraining the YSRCP members from hurling personal abuses” and later not allowing him to make a statement in the house.

“NTR also faced ignominy once in the house but he was given the opportunity to make a statement on his decision to boycott the assembly,” Naidu told reporters.

Naidu strongly objected to the 'personal insults' aimed at his wife “despite the fact that she has always kept away from politics.”

"My wife never interfered in political matters. Despite her father, late NT Rama Rao served as a Chief Minister and I worked for a long-time as CM, not many in TDP not know about her. I am not able to digest why my family should be preyed on in such a hideous way".

The TDP supremo recalled that Jagan's father and late CM YS Rajasekhara Reddy too had once hurled an insult at him in the assembly involving his mother. “But YS accepted his mistake and apologized to me.”

While TDP is demanding an apology, YSRCP is rubbishing Naidu's “decision and outburst as a drama of a leader frustrated by electoral defeats in his own constituency.”

On Thursday, during the business advisory committee meeting on the first day of the assembly session, Jagan reportedly quipped, inquiring with Kinjarapu Atchannaidu, senior TDP MLA, “if Naidu would appear in the assembly, as he wants to see his face after the Kuppam defeat.”

Earlier this week, the YSRCP managed to upset Naidu in his assembly constituency by taking hold of the Kuppam municipality.

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