HYDERABAD: TDP MP N Harikrishna has declared intentions of pulling an Anna Hazare on his brother- in-law Chandrababu Naidu, triggering talk of an incipient revolt against the TDP president.
Harikrishna’s shot across his own party’s bow came in the form of a three-page epistle distributed by his followers even as Naidu was essaying a padayatra in the city against corruption. The MP, son of party founder N T Rama Rao, stayed away from the walkathon but the letter said there was no greater corruption buster than his father and made no mention of Naidu’s name in the same breath. Providing grist to the mills of revolt, the MP claimed in the letter, “I am the protector of the ideals of NTR."
The rest of the letter was entirely about the corruption fighting credentials of the late TDP founder and such legacy legated to his son. But coming in the midst of reports of a rift between the Nandamuri and Nara families, the letter created a flutter in the ranks.
Some senior leaders in the party dismissed Harikrishna’s grumbling as a storm in a tea cup. “One need not read much into the letter,” said K Yerran Naidu. In fact, they were not aimed against Naidu but targetted Y S Jagan, he claimed.
Others took the side of Naidu and pointed out that it was he who has emerged as the elder in the NTR family, having facilitated the rapprochement between Harikrishna’s son NTR Jr and the extended family.
Naidu himself told reporters it was a minor matter to which the media was giving way too much importance. Denying that a gulf developed bet ween the Nara and Nandamuri families, he termed the reports as the “imaginative skills of the media”. Sources in the party said Harikrishna has not been happy with Naidu’s functioning for some time now. The breaking point apparently came when he was not accorded the treatment due to him when he toured Krishna district recently. A source said the trouble may conflate, if not nipped now, into a clash between Lokesh Naidu and NTR Jr.