Chandrababu Naidu: His manifesto was creative, the schemes were unique and yet his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was unable to dislodge the Congress from Andhra Pradesh. What happened? Naidu was one of the few politicians who concentrated on his political manifesto, fine-tuned it with the Left parties with whom he had an alliance and did a U-turn on the TDP’s opposition to the creation of Telangana, conceding that the demand for smaller states was a legitimate one. The Congress, by contrast, stonewalled the demand. But because of the presence of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the alliance, the Telugu Desam contested fewer seats in Telengana. As the TRS suffered a rout in the region, the number of seats won by the TDP also came down.
The TDP rewrote its election manifesto incorporating inputs from the Left parties. It changed its position on Telangana. It conducted a vigorous campaign against Congress Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy. But it suffered the Chiranjeevi effect as a part of its vote was taken away by the Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party. In all, both in the Assembly and the Lok Sabha polls, the Telugu Desam Party’s performance was below par.
