Highly placed sources said Nara Lokesh Babu, the heir apparent of Chandrababu Naidu, has devised a novel and positive political plank for the GHMC elections, scheduled in the month of January. The plank is not to criticize the ruling TRS in the ensuing GHMC election. Instead he would build the election tempo around the positive contribution of Chandrababu Naidu to the city of Hyderabad, and how Naidu worked hard to make the city catapult to Hi-tech status. TDP-BJP together go ahead with the slogan “Sahar Hamara… Mayor Hamara”.
Lokesh campaign revolves around numerous landmarks created by Chandrababu Naidu’s regime between 1994 and 2004, which include International airport, flyovers, ORR, Hyderabad Metro, Hi-tech city, software industry, many sports stadia, engineering colleges etc. Even Krishna , Manjeera and Godavari waters to Hyderabad were the schemes formulated when Naidu was chief minister.
Lokesh is appointed in charge of GHMC elections, the jurisdiction of which falls in the Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts. To acquaint himself with situation Lokesh has been holding regular review meetings. Last night and today he is said to have convened a meeting on GHMC, third in the past ten days.
A couple of days ago we reported in these columns that Lokesh was on Mission-100 in GHMC. He set this target for himself, even though it looks an uphill affair. In the last GHMC preparatory meeting held on last Tuesday, he made public his target of winning 90-100 seats in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation which has 150 divisions. Notwithstanding the fragile condition of the party in GHMC area following migration of party MLAs to TRS, the Stanford Business School graduate, set the target of winning the corporation by bagging 90-100 divisions. Last night he held another review meeting with the party leaders from Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts reportedly to discuss the campaign theme.
Party sources said Lokesh still believes that Seemandhra people are decisive voters in Hyderabad and they would vote for TDP to preserve their identity. ” So if the party makes them feel proud of Chandrababu Naidu’s contribution to Hyderabad, which made it a global city, TDP is bound to emerge a single largest party in GHMC. Naidu’s contribution to Hyderabad and Seemandhra sentiment are the ones which Lokesh wants to play up to win the GHMC election,” the sources said.
Chinna Babu, as he is fondly called among the coterie, strongly believes that Telangana sentiment is weak in GHMC area and would not help TRS win in GHMC, sources said. MLA and GHMC TDP president Maganti Gopinath,RR district TDP president Prakash Goud, other TDP leaders MN Srinivas Rao, Sama Rangareddy, Mekala Sarangapani, Subash Yadav,Vanam Ramesh participated in the deliberations with Lokesh. The meeting also expressed hope that the party candidate Mutha Gopal would win RR MLC seat with huge majority.
