VIJAYAWADA: The mood was sombre at the usually bustling Interim Government Complex (IGC) on Tuesday.
TDP supremo and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who was supposed to reach the Interim Government Complex in Velagapudi by 10 a.m as per the official schedule, arrived only after 12.30 p.m. Sources said he was keenly watching the trends of Assembly election results of five States, particularly Telangana, at his residence in the morning.
But with the Congress-led People’s Front, of which the TDP is a part, facing a rout in Telangana, a disappointed Chief Minister confined himself to clearing files for the most part of the day. The number of visitors too was very less, sources told TNIE. Except for a few ministers and officials, the Chief Minister did not meet anyone till late in the evening.
After getting a clear picture of the poll trends in all the five States, Naidu issued a press release congratulating his Telangana counterpart and TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao upon winning the elections. He said that the TDP would respect the people’s verdict in Telangana and extended his wishes to all the elected legislators in all the five States. In the same breath, Naidu highlighted the point that the BJP was weakened across the nation. “After losing several seats in by-elections during the past five years, the saffron party was weakened again as evident from the poll results in the five States,” he commented.
“All sections of people across the nation are vexed with the BJP as the Centre has done nothing for them. People are looking for an alternative and supporting agitations taken up by us against the saffron party. Poll results of the five States will come in handy for forming a strong alternative to the BJP in the 2019 general elections,’’ Naidu opined. Later in the evening, the Chief Minister met a delegation of California Legislature. Thereafter, he went into a huddle with AP Planning Board vice-chairman C Kutumba Rao, Labour Minister P Satyanarayana and a few others at his chambers.
Sources said usually, the Chief Minister would hold a meeting with available ministers and senior leaders on such an occasion, but this time around, he preferred to have discussions with his close aides. Sources said Naidu and his aides were chalking out a response to TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao’s barbs at him during the latter’s press conference in Hyderabad.
The TDP’s loss in Hyderabad including the one in Kukatpally, where the late Nandamuri Harikrishna’s daughter Suhasini was fielded, upset the Chief Minister, sources said.