Arrogance of all forms is untenable in any sphere of life. More so, in politics. Obscurantism, more often than not, especially of weaknesses, leads to blurred vision to the reality. Self-aggrandisement is ominous when it is blown out of proportion.
Whenever a leader or an MLA or an MP has deserted the party, the Telugu Desam’s vuvuzelas used to blow in high decibels to obscure the effect of the desertion. Right from Chandrababu Naidu to the last man until then in the party hierarchy habitually claim that there is nothing to worry about. “After all, ours is a cadre-based party and even if one or two leaders go, the strong cadres would remain with us.”
This is how precisely the TDP’s big time, small time leaders and its friendly media used to bloat the ego of the party leadership and wean it away from the bitter reality on the ground.
Hundreds of leaders left the TDP into the TRS in Telangana over the years. Founder of the regional party KCR himself is trained, tamed, tested and trusted in the TDP until “mistrust” and “denial” hit him hard in 1999.
The people who stood like a rock by the party began eying it with suspicion ever since NTR was backstabbed. Even after that, the people stood by Naidu for a variety of reasons.
However, after its terrible show in 2014 elections, TDP leadership did not realise that it’s harping on a shaky ground and it needs to look into within and set the house in order. When six MLAs made a beeline into the TRS at regular intervals, the TDP began self consolation, saying that cadre is with it only. When diehard loyalists like G Sayanna and Manchireddy Kishan Reddy and Madhavaram Krishna Rao left the party, the TDP leadership didn’t demo any reaction. By then, it has lost sense of its faculties.
Tummala Nageswara Rao’s exit could not be seen as a major crater in its own road to recovery as the signalling system in the party became defunct long ago.
A party that had its glorious past in the region never want to admit that the attitude of its leadership was the main trigger for the separate Telangana agitation. The goal of the agitation is not only to achieve a separate statehood, but it is to completely bury the TDP in the State. That they secured 23 per cent of voting and still stood second in the GHMC elections is good to hear from its sycophants in a TV discussion or an early morning brawls, as they turn out to be, in front of cameras.
NTR estate lost its sheen. “Abids residence of the Chief Minister”, as it was popularly known, slipped into the memories of NTR’s admirers. RamaKrishna Cine Studios has become NBK estate. His Banjara Hills Residence where he breathed his last is razed to ground and a commercial complex is coming up there. Gandipeta Telugu Vijayam, the temporal abode of the legendary politician, is hardly a place of the party activity. Nacharam studios and kuteeram remain historic facts.
When NTR sat on a silent hunger strike on the Tank Bund in 1992, the scintillating saffron robes of the tallest showman of Indian polity and Telugu tinsel town radiated positive energy.
The banks of the same Tank Bund, where he cried hoarse upon being deposed from the Chief Minister’s throne, bemoan even today in repentance.
Lal Bahadur Stadium, which bore his hearse after having seen his grandeur, still weeps silently.
Now, the Telugu Desam Party, which disowned him publicly when he was alive and embraced his spirit after his demise, is in a shambles in its birth place, Telangana and more precisely, Hyderabad.
It’s now on the verge of extinction, thanks to political brinkmanship of Chandrababu Naidu.
