Is Chandrababu Naidu An Incurable Narcissist? 

Kommineni Srinivasa Rao

Flattery seems to be the order of the day; at least it is so with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N ChandrababuNaidu. Though the general public tend to show that they are not interested in sycophancy, Chandrababu Naidu is not hesitant to lap up praise at any given chance by his party men and officialdom. The flattery almost borders on narcissism, especially when we look at the names of the 20 government programmes that have been recently launched. All of them have been named after him.

A recent example is the launch of Village Malls named after Chandranna. The publicity materials are dyed in yellow colour (the Telugu Desam Party colour) with his photo on one side and NTR’s on the other. Looks like he is setting a new trend in government publicity which is clearly going overboard. A Chief Minister naming government programmes or schemes after himself is a new phenomenon in the country. Till date no Prime Minister or Chief Minister had the courage to try this out. Perhaps they hadn’t given a thought along these lines, and even if a few had imagined they disagreed to lend their consent to have their names for government schemes.

Even after having been at the helm of affairs for 23 years in West Bengal, Jyothi Basu never ventured into such activity, nor did Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who was CM of the same state for nine years thought of this. In fact, even after Jyothi Basu stepped down from CM’s seat or after he died, there were no attempts to have his name for government programmes. Similarly, event after decades of CPM rule in Tripura state, they have never ventured into such activity, so much so that its CM Manik Sarkar’s photo will not seen in any of the government publicity material.

In fact, a CM has to act as the trustee for the entire money that is collected from public in the form of taxes. His/her duty is to facilitate and serve the general public through different welfare schemes in their state. Only after the people have benefitted through such schemes, they can name welfare programmes in praise of their respective CM. There is nothing wrong in this kind of activity. But having his name for the schemes that are operated through the public money is not advisable and only ChandrababuNaidu can dare to have over 20 state government programmes or schemes in his name. This is an indication of the desperation of Telugu Desam Party.

Even the founder of Telugu Desam party and renowned actor NTR never dreamt of such things, he was interested in bringing a cultural or historical identity for government programmes and schemes. Chandrababu Naidu too never showed this culture of naming government schemes in his name during his earlier tenure as the CM. His only mission back then was getting publicity with an aim to lure the vote banks. But this time, all the government departments are permitted to introduce new programmes only when it has been named after him.

It was a different scenario during YS RajashekaraReddy’s term as the CM. He named different programmes after Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and he was criticized even for that. But he never thought about having government schemes in his name. Think was the case with Rosaiah and Kiran Kumar Reddy, as well. They too never dreamt of having their names on government programmes. After the state bifurcation and Chandrababu Naidu becoming the CM of AP, Naidu has changed his ways. Looks like Telangana CM KCR has picked a leaf out of Naidu’s book and gone ahead by naming one scheme as KCR Kit. He is facing criticism for it.

The general opinion is that Chandrababu Naidu is suffering from fear psychosis that he might not become the CM once again and people might forget him and hence is introducing all the government programmes and schemes in his name. If Naidu or KCR had spent their own money for some welfare programme and named it after themselves, they would definitely invite much appreciation, but using public money and having their names for government schemes is definitely not in good taste.

The craze of naming has gone to such extreme that even Kapu Bhavan was about to be named after Naidu. This saw severe opposition from Kapus who were against Kapu Bhavan being named after a Kamma leader like Chandrababu Naidu. The opposition made the TDP withdraw the idea.

If the Telugu Desam leaders and Chandrababu Naidu are obsessed to have their names, then they can very well have it on their houses, for their children and grand children. They have no right to misuse public money as their own. In fact, they are insulting public by having the CM’s name for government funded programmes.

It is for the public to appreciate the work of the leaders and they should come forward to name welfare programmes after their favourite leaders. Leaders forcefully inscribing their names on government schemes in not acceptable. This only mirrors the degenerate politics of Telugu Desam Party.