VIJAYAWADA: As he took oath of office tonight, Nara Chandrababu Naidu has earned a unique distinction of becoming the first Chief Minister of a new state in addition to being the longest-serving CM of Andhra Pradesh.
Chandrababu served as the Chief Minister of (united) Andhra Pradesh for eight years, eight months and 13 days (from September 1, 1995 to May 13, 2004) the longest tenure for any CM of AP and now he has become the first CM of (bifurcated) AP.
Chandrababu also has other distinctions like being the youngest MLA in the state and the youngest minister at the age of 28 when he was first inducted as minister for cinematography in the then Cabinet of T Anjaiah in 1978.
A seven-time MLA, he also holds the record as the longest-serving Leader of Opposition in Andhra Pradesh between 2004 and 2014.
Born on April 20, 1950, into a middle-class agricultural family at Naravaripalle near the temple-town of Tirupati, Chandrababu started off as a students' union leader in Sri Venkateswara University while pursuing his Masters in Economics. He joined the Youth Congress in 1975 and was elected as an MLA for the first time in 1978 from his native Chandragiri constituency. Chandrababu had to drop his PhD programme in economics after he became a minister.
While serving as minister, Chandrababu caught the Telugu silver screen legend N T Rama Rao's eye and a relationship was thus built when NTR gave his second daughter Bhuvaneswari in marriage to the former in 1980.
Chandrababu lost the 1983 election as Congress nominee in the newborn Telugu Desam's wave but within months quietly switched over to the fledgling party floated by his father-in-law.
He was made in-charge of Karshaka Parishad, the farmers' council established by the NTR government, and later the general secretary of TDP, to emerge as the key strategist and organiser of party affairs.
He also had to weather some political storms, mostly notably the exit of K Chandrasekhar Rao from the TDP and the launch of Telangana Rashtra Samiti with the only demand for bifurcation of the state.
He had to eventually give in to the separate state demand and alter the TDP's united AP policy.
In 2009, Chandrababu would have wrested power from the Congress but for the emergence of actor Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) that cut into the anti-incumbency votes and helped Y S Rajasekhara Reddy retain power. Thus, Chandrababu was relegated to the opposition leader's slot for a second successive term.
He faced the threat of political extinction as nobody gave TDP a chance of returning to power in 2014 in the face of a serious challenge posed by another new entrant YSR Congress of Jagan Mohan Reddy, son of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy on the state's political scene.
The state bifurcation came as a blessing in disguise for Chandrababu as people saw hope only in him as a tall and "experienced" leader who could recreate the magic and build the new state of AP into a well-developed province.
The 2014 election mandate in AP was decisively in his favour. And, this will be by far the biggest political challenge for the shrewd campaigner.
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