The Hindu Business Line : Forecasts of TDP rout

Opinion and exit polls predict a rout for the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh headed by Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu. Whether such a prediction comes true will be known on May 13. Still, it seems that some of the sheen has worn off the person who has been lionised as India's most tech-savvy chief minister. His opportunism appears to have got the better of him, says Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

A grim Mr Chandrababu Naidu against the portrait of the TDP's founder, N. T. Rama Rao... Will he recede into the shadow?

THE Telugu Desam Party founder N. T. Rama Rao's charisma had faded somewhat towards the end of his fourth and last term as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh that started in December 1994. A widower, his marriage to his biographer Lakshmi Parvathi was disapproved by many, notably his son-in-law, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, who made no secret of his view that NTR, by then over 70, should not have chosen to marry a once-married woman half his age.

Even if NTR's appeal was on the wane at that time, his death in office on January 18, 1996, ensured that he would remain a martyr in the minds of many in his state.

After succeeding NTR as Chief Minister, in just a few years, his astute 45-year-old son-in-law acquired a high profile in India and abroad, thanks to his propagation of the virtues of information technology and his self-projected image as the Chief Executive Officer of Andhra Pradesh.

Public memory is short and few remembered Mr Naidu as one who had stood staunchly behind Sanjay Gandhi well after the infamous 19-month Emergency period ended in March 1977 when former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's younger son had acquired considerable notoriety as an "extra-constitutional authority".

Born on April 20, 1950, in Naravaripally in Chittoor district, Mr Naidu became an MLA for the first time in 1978 from the Chandragiri constituency on a Congress ticket. He served for a while as director of the State's Small Industries Development Corporation and then became a minister in the K. Vijayabhaskar Reddy government.

Between 1980 and 1983, he held various portfolios in the State government including those of Archives, Cinematography, Technical Education, Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development, Public Libraries and Minor Irrigation. He also served as head of the State government's Karshak Parishad looking after farmers' interests, before he quit the Congress and joined the TDP that had then just been founded by his father-in-law. He initially served as general secretary of the party.

In 1989, Mr Naidu was elected from Kuppam and was re-elected in 1994 from the same constituency by a handsome margin of around 57,000 votes. Thereafter, he was entrusted with the crucial portfolios of Finance and Revenue by NTR. However, Mr Naidu's relations with his father-in-law became strained since he and Ms Parvathi perceived each other as competitors for NTR's attention.

Mr Naidu was not averse to hijacking the TDP and splitting it to quash Ms Parvathi's political ambitions. She, like NTR's son Haribabu, who had parted ways with Mr Naidu in 1998, proved no match at all for him and both were consigned to political oblivion.

Mr Naidu's political stature rose rapidly after he became the convenor of the United Front coalition that came to power in New Delhi after the May 1996 general elections. After the outcome of the February 1998 elections became known, Mr Naidu demonstrated his opportunism by dropping the UF like a hot potato.

He instructed the 12 MPs belonging to the TDP in the 12th Lok Sabha to abstain from voting against the second Vajpayee government in the motion of confidence. For his support, which was critical for the new government to survive, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee appointed Mr Naidu's nominee, the late G. M. C. Balayogi as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

Despite realising that he risked alienating nearly 20 per cent of the voters of his State — mainly Muslims and Christians — Mr Naidu took a calculated risk and aligned the TDP with the BJP after ditching the Left. In the September-October 1999 Lok Sabha elections that were conducted simultaneously with the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, the TDP was able to return to power albeit with a reduced majority.

A substantial section of the media has frequently painted Mr Naidu as "forward looking" and he too has been adept at managing journalists. His visit to the US where he met Microsoft founder Bill Gates was widely publicised. He set up a high-profile educational institution, the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.

Mr Naidu has also headed the first State government in India that successfully obtained a huge Rs 2,200-crore loan from the World Bank despite the economic sanctions that were imposed in the aftermath of the May 1988 nuclear tests.

Mr Naidu has seemingly shunned the economic populism that was associated with NTR. He cut subsidies by increasing power tariffs, water rates and bus fares. The State government reduced subsidies on distribution of rice and increased taxes on professionals and traders. While Mr Naidu has often claimed that he wants AP to be the most advanced State, he surely knows that the State government is steeped in debt. Even as Hyderabad glitters and promises to match Bangalore as the infotech capital of the country, if not the world, large sections of the rural population of the state remain vulnerable to epidemics, many penurious farmers have committed suicide and extremist (Naxalite) groups continue to indulge in acts of violence with impunity.

Mr Naidu, like his predecessors, has equivocated on the issue of dealing with the Naxalites. Attempts at initiating a dialogue with the People's War group have been interspersed with periods during which the state government cracked down hard on militants.

In October 2003, Mr Naidu came perilously lose to being assassinated by a landmine planted along a route he was travelling. His subsequent decision to call for early elections to the state assembly was perceived as an attempt to cash in on the "sympathy" factor.

While asking for enhanced financial assistance from the Union government to tackle the activities of Naxalite groups, Mr Naidu has strongly opposed the Vajpayee government's position on carving out smaller states from big ones. He certainly does not want Telengana to become a separate state.

At the same time, Mr Naidu has opposed the position of BJP hard-liners on constructing a Ram Temple at Ayodhya. On August 3, 2003, he had reiterated his party's position that it was in favour of the Supreme Court resolving the temple dispute.

Mr Naidu has time and again affirmed the TDP's support for the BJP-led NDA government but emphasised that its support is contingent on the government sticking to the NDA's common minimum programme. While occasionally asserting its `independence' from the BJP on issues like Ayodhya and while underlining the fact that the TDP was not a part of either the Vajpayee government or the NDA, Mr Naidu has not been averse to arm-twisting the Union government to ensure that more funds flow from New Delhi to Hyderabad.

He successfully lobbied to ensure that more money was given to the State for various natural calamities and to ensure that the Food Corporation of India procured large quantities of rice from farmers in the state.

The AP government represented before the Eleventh Finance Commission that it should not be "discriminated" against less developed States for having "performed" well — that is, by bringing down the rate of growth of population and by improving education and health-care facilities in the state.

The TDP was also among the political parties that had vehemently opposed the decision of the then Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, to increase the officially administered prices of fertilisers in the February 2002 budget.

One occasion when it appeared as if the rift between the TDP and the Vajpayee government would widen was during the communal riots in Gujarat. Less than six weeks after the communal riots had begun in Gujarat, on April 11, 2002, the TDP formally called for the ouster of Mr Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat. At a meeting of the politbureau of the TDP, the party adopted a resolution demanding an immediate change of guard in Gujarat since the riots had "tarnished India's image" as a liberal, modern and secular society.

It was reported at that time that Mr Naidu had been privately assured by the Prime Minister that Mr Modi would be replaced. Thus, Mr Vajpayee's Goa statement supporting Mr Modi came as a big surprise to Mr Naidu. While it is difficult to verify such speculative reports, it is a fact is that 28 MPs of the TDP abstained from voting in the Lok Sabha on May 1, 2002, after a 16-hour debate during which the Opposition unsuccessfully sought to pass a motion castigating the government for the Gujarat riots.

Even on the eve of the December 2002 assembly elections in Gujarat, on November 17, the TDP publicly backed the order of the Election Commission banning religious rallies from being held in the state. The TDP also protested loudly in Parliament when the government tried to introduce a Bill seeking to ban cow slaughter all over the country in August 2003.

While travelling extensively across his State, Mr Naidu has tried to temper his pro-rich image (played up by his political opponents) by initiating schemes like the Janmabhoomi scheme, a programme of community participation to build projects in rural areas.

His critics complain that Mr Naidu's policies have widened the gap between the rich and the poor, that he is too opportunistic to be a reliable ally and that the only ideology he believes in is to stay in power.

His supporters, on the other hand, have contended that more than most other Indian politicians, Mr Naidu has understood the importance of modern technology its potential to change the lives of ordinary people.

A gung-ho economic liberaliser pleading for higher inflows of foreign investment in the poorest State in southern India, it appears as if Mr Naidu has failed to impress large sections of the electorate of Andhra Pradesh after nearly nine years in power. At least, that is what the opinion polls are claiming.

(The author is Director, School of Convergence, International Management Institute, New Delhi and a journalist with over 25 years of experience in various media - print, Internet, radio and television. This article has been based on a section of a book co-authored by him and Shankar Raghuraman entitled: "A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand" published recently by Sage Publications. He can be contacted at paranjoy@yahoo.com.)