Not many seem to have observed a change in Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu these days. This is a change which goes against the grain of Naidu. When there is a calamity, natural or Man Made, Naidu would become hyperactive. Not only would he announce liberal support but also dispatch officials to the spot to oversee the rescue mission. Special buses and flights would be organized. When some Telugu students got washed away in the dam-waters in Himachal, we had seen Naidu’s involvement. He forced the Himachal officials to fish out the bodies from the river. Through out the mission, he ensured one or two ministers camped there. Similarly, When floods hit Kashmir, Naidu’s representatives were there within hours. In both cases, Naidu deputed special representatives to the place of disaster. Ministers had been asked to stay put their till the last Telugu-man was rescued and sent home safe. Control rooms were set up in Delhi and Hyderabad. Similarly when a building collapsed in Chennai, Naidu’s team from relief commissioner’s office rushed to the spot and stayed put there till all the bodies were retrieved from the rubble. People, who saw Naidu as chief minister in his first stint, are aware how Naidu sent proactively teams and material assistance to Odisha when the neighboring state was hit by cyclone some 20 years back.
What happened to the good Samaritan in Naidu?
Even though unprecedented rains hit neighboring Chennai, causing untold hardships to the people, where at least one third of city’s population are Telugus, Naidu has been silent. The flood devastation was so much, the Prime Minister rushed for an aerial survey without any delay and announced Rs 1000 crore immediate additional assistance. Scores of people said to have been perished in the fury of floods. According to sources, thousands of Telugu people have been affected by the floods in Chennai. Still Naidu did not utter a single word. Instead he asked state chief secretary IYR Krishna Rao to speak to his counterpart in Tamil Nadu to find out if the state was in need of any help from Andhra Pradesh. The TN chief secretary instead of jumping with joy to take Naidu’s help simply conveyed that he would get back later.
There has been palpable tension between Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu following the encounter killing of 21 wood-cutters belonging that state in Seshachalam Forest in April 2015. A task force of Andhra Pradesh killed wood cutters engaged by the Red Sanders’ smugglers . Tamil Nadu chief minister is said to have disapproved of the killing of poor laborers from her state. The killing of laborers, leaving smugglers, appears to have generated enough bad blood between the two states. The unfriendliness is felt indirectly. According to official sources, the removal of Telugu medium from Tamil Nadu schools is said to be the fallout of the encounter killing. Now, Naidu is not able to do anything for Chennai people, killing his natural inclination of rising to the occasion, even though his home district Chittoor shares a long border with Tamil state- reason Seshachalam Encounter, they say.
