He covered 2,817 km on foot in 208 days, braving a sprained leg and chronic diabetes. Now, only time will tell how effective TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu’s much-flaunted padayatra has been and how many seats won it will translate to in the 2014 elections.
In the process of his epic journey, the 63-year-old leader also picked up a whole new set of skills. He played cobbler at one halt, an iron-monger in another. He also tilled fields. Little wonder then that people are saying that he not only outdid former chief minister Y Rajasekhara Reddy by undertaking a longer walkathon, but also surpassed his father-in- law NTR in roleplay. NTR had done it on the screen, Naidu did it in real life. He also lost 4kg in the process.
Naidu’s mega walkathon —Vastunna Meekosam Padayatra— kickstarted from Hindupur in Anantapur district on October 2 last year. It ended in Visakhapatnam amid warm applause on April 27. Naidu’s voice made little of his tired body as he roared in attack against YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy for amassing ill-gotten wealth in Visakhapatnam. Next day he returned to Hyderabad by air, where a huge crowd received him. “The first step in Hindupur was my own. Then on, people’s travails made me continue walking and I never minded the distance,” Naidu said on arrival. Women welcomed him with aarti and some traditional rituals were performed to ward of any “evil eye” cast on him during the long padayatra.
After his return, Naidu declared a Dharma Yuddham on the Congress regime in the state and exuded confidence that he would be the winner in the holy war.
Naidu wanted to visit Tirumala and then go abroad to take rest for a while but doctors have advised him not to stir out of home for the next six weeks and undergo physiotherapy. “At present he is confined to home. If he does not move around, a pain in his left leg would subside. Unless it is an emergency, Naidu would not be coming out for the next one and half months,” party leader T D Janardhan Reddy said.
On May 2, Naidu drove to the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology where a team of doctors led by Dr D Nageshwar Reddy ran several tests and advised him rest. Apart from the pain in the leg and minor injury to his spine, Naidu is also suffering from diabetes.
During his padayatra, Naidu hurt the little toe of his left leg and developed a sprain in the fibula. Though doctors advised him against walking, he continued, ignoring the pain. The pain aggravated when he was in West Godavari. The doctors said it’s time to quit, but again, he did not listen to them.
Naidu’s wife Bhuvaneswari who used to visit him every Sunday and return to Hyderabad the next morning during the padayatra, began spending two to three days with him after the pain aggravated. His son Lokesh too started spending more time. “Naidu would listen to no one. He is a determined man. He wanted to reach Visakhapatnam by April 27, which he did,” TDP general secretary Garikapati Mohana Rao who was with him throughout the padayatra said.
Jagan’s camp is not impressed. His sister Sharmila called Naidu a moon-walker because he went on a padayatra on winter nights while her father did it in the summer of 2003. YSR Congress MLA Dharmana Krishna Das said Naidu had emerged as Telugu Desam-Congress leader because of improvement in TDP-Congress ties during the walkathon.