A Brief History of Chandrababu’s Political Chicanery

By Sadhana Seelam

Even a cursory look at Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu's political trajectory holds true to the old Telugu adage, 'Andite kallu, andaka pothe juttu' Or some version of that, which could translate into English as by any means necessary or, by hook or by crook.

CBN thought little of stabbing his father-in-law in the back. In his halcyon days, seeking to enter into the political arena, he had tried hard to curry favor with Dr. YSR, who treated him with his famous geniality, but had the intuition to keep would-be traitors at arm's length. Naidu quickly learned that he could find a quicker path to power by nixing his own father in law, NTR. He did just that and had succeeded then in alienating NTR's immediate family.

He had no problems trampling on people to get to the top. He made alliances, switched alliances, formed new alliances, so power hungry was he that he bought people for crores of rupees, intimidated those that couldn't be bought and now, in a desperate surge of frenzy, may have had a hand in trying to harm Leader of Opposition in Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and YSR Congress Party President, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out—it's all in plain view.

In the most recent general election, he aligned with the BJP, eagerly standing for hours to get Narendra Modi's audience, whereas, soon after the Gujarat riots, because it was politically expedient then, he condemned Modi and said he should be jailed. But in the last election, with his survival at stake, he flashed his chameleon-like nature by embedding with Modi's BJP, spewing venom at YSRCP and Congress and literally pulled off a nail-biter of a victory by the skin of his teeth, a paltry few thousand votes determining his party's victory.

Now, with the next general election looming, it should come as a surprise to no one that Naidu has yet again, switched sides, this time to align himself with the Congress tacitly and otherwise in Telangana and AP, and to travel to Delhi now to shore up support and bask in the suspect glow of others who could unseat BJP.

For Naidu, it was never about defending an ideology or a platform or core belief, but about carefully nurturing his own success path, mowing down anyone and everyone who came in the way; his only mantra, 'Stay on top of the power grid, by hook or by crook.'

Also Read: You Can’t Spin Everything Mr. Naidu

The author is a US-based columnist