Win Will Help Parvathi Keep Party Together R Srinivasan
Even during the lifetime of N T Rama Rao, Parvathi has been seeking an entry into the Assembly. When Rama Rao quit the Tekkali seat to retain the Hindupur constituency after the 1994 Assembly elections, Lakshmi Parvathi was a serious contender for the seat.
The split in the NTR family could be traced to the move of Rama Rao to field his second wife at Tekkali. In the face of strong opposition, the move was given up.
Victory for Lakshmi Parvathi at Pathapatnam was important on more than one ground. The 30-odd legislators, who remained united behind him so long as NTR was alive, were fast deserting the party and at the time of the Pathapatnam bypoll only eight were with the widow. There was speculation that barring one or two hardcore supporters, the remaining will also walk over to the ruling TDP once the bypoll is over. This may not happen now.
Secondly, after the bashing the party received in the Lok Sabha poll where it failed to bag even one seat, there was frustration in the party rank and file. The party had almost gone into oblivion.
Now, with the victory, it gets a breather and if Lakshmi Parvathi plays her cards well and makes a dent in the coming local bodies elections, she could emerge as a powerful opponent to the ruling party.
Lakshmi Parvathis entry into the Assembly will not make a difference to the ruling party in so far as the numbers game is concerned. But it is a psychological defeat personally to Chandrababu Naidu, after the Herculean effort he had put in to stall Lakshmi Parvathis victory.
The ruling TDPs victory in Nandyal was a foregone conclusion, after P V Narasimha Rao abandoned the constituency and the Congress opted for a bureaucrat-turned-politician instead of a known local. But a victory by a margin of 4.40 lakh votes for TDPs B Nagi Reddy, the runner up in the last Lok Sabha poll, was something neither the Congress nor the TDP had bargained for.
The defeat of the CPI candidate at Sujatnagar, a seat held by the party earlier, could be traced to the partys shifting stand on the rice and power rates hike. The Congress was a net gainer by one seat. It failed to take advantage of the popular resentment against the diluting of the populist programmes of NTR. It took victory for its candidates for granted and its leaders spent more time addressing news conferences in Hyderabad than in the field.
The net loss for the TDP is two seats. But its success in the other eight seats is to be seen against the strong anti-price hike agitation that most parts of the state had been witnessing over the past few weeks. For this reason, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu considers the partys performance very satisfactory.
If the Congress is to get back its prime position on the political canvas of Andhra Pradesh, it will have to do considerable introspection.
The offer of the Pradesh Congress Chief, K Roshiah, to quit the post, owning moral responsibility for the partys poor performance, could be the starting point.