Telegu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu is undaunted by the scorching sun as he moves forward along the black ribbon of a road stretching for miles ahead of him. Like a prizefighter, all his energies are focused on one thing: the 2014 general election.
When Naidu decided to go on a padayatra to recapture his connect with the people of Andhra Pradesh, his colleagues advised him against it. Some said it would be seen as an imitation of his nemesis Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, whose padayatra of 2003 set him on the road to power. Others reminded Naidu that he is, at 63, not exactly a spring chicken.
But the TDP boss ignored the caution and hit the road from this town in Anantapur district on October 2. He is determined to cover over 2, 200 km in 117 days, touching 13 districts across all three regions: Rayalaseema, Telangana and Andhra.
He has christened the yatra ‘Vastunna Mee Kosam’, which translates as ‘I’m coming for your sake’.
Critics have carped. Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president Botcha Satyanarayana said Naidu should have named his yatra ‘Vastunna Naa Kosam’ (I am coming for my sake) while minister S Shailajanath said Naidu is punishing himself for the sins he committed when he was chief minister.
But on the ground, TDP workers worked up excitement about the padayatra even before Naidu’s arrival in Hindupur. The inaugural of the padayatra had all the typical imagery associated with such political sojourns. Naidu left home in Hyderabad after accepting aarti from his wife Bhuvaneshwari, flew down to Bangalore and from there came to Hindupur in a motorcade of 300 vehicles with son Lokesh by his side. After offering prayers at Anjaneya Swamy temple in the town and obeisance to statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Jotiba Phule, B R Ambedkar and N T Rama Rao, he took his first step at the rather late hour of 7 pm on October 2.
The weather was kind on the first two days and there was a spring in Naidu’s step as he covered more than 10 km each day. Then, October 4 was hot and October 5 scorching. But the violent sun has not deterred Naidu. He steps out of the well-appointed bus in which he sleeps, eats and bathes, wears the appropriate headgear offered to him by supporters and commences his walk for the day to the accompaniment of dancers and singers.
At the village square of Roddem, deep in the faction-ridden region of Rayalaseema, a huge crowd of farmers, women and youth awaits him. These are the groups Naidu wants to reach out to and recover their faith. He hears their grievances and allows them to say how different it had all been when he was chief minister. Not lacking in wry humour, Naidu points out that he was in power for nine years and has been out of it for nine more. The unsaid nudge is that it’s now time things turned a full circle.
The padayatra is taking place at a time when the Congress government is in a state of drift and its main players are preoccupied with plotting against one another. When Naidu says he wonders whether there is a government in the state at all, there are loud cheers. At LBG Nagar, a woman, Anjaneyamma, tells him that her village has no drinking water and no power supply, Naidu immediately tells her how it had been in 2004, when he demitted office. “Was there an hour’s power cut in those days? Was there water scarcity?” he asks. “In my days, the state’s revenue was `25,000 crore. Now it is `1.50 lakh crore. But situation was better in those days.”
Sometimes on the stump, people can stump you. Although the TDP’s critics says the padayatra events are rent-a-crowd assemblies, some people in the congregation complain to Naidu about how the local MLA, a TDP man, has never bothered about voters’ welfare. At Kogira village, one woman, Lakshmamma, tells Naidu that the Penukonda MLA B K Parthasarathy was of no help when her land was appropriated by Congress supporters. “Please help me. I have five daughters,” she says.
Among the people thronging to the padayatra, there is a hope that things will get better if Naidu became chief minister again. “There is no government at all now. The situation may improve, though I am not sure, if Naidu comes back to power,” says Kuruva Chowdappa, a farmer in Roddem. Though he has land irrigated by a canal, he cannot cultivate because there is no water in the canal. His job card was taken away. “I cannot get work under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Please help me get back my job card back,” he pleaded with Naidu.
These are familiar voter woe stories and in the early days of the padayatra Naidu would be gratified that they are coming to him, that they think of him as a solution finder. In the days to come, he would hope that the bandwagon will attract adherents from many such disgruntled social groups and add up to a compelling pre-election momentum.
But the toughest days for the padayatra are not in Anantapur district, which is a TDP stronghold anyway, but beyond, in Kurnool district where Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress has made deep inroads into the turf of the TDP and the Congress and then in all of Telangana, where Naidu is seen as a fencesitter on the separate state question.