Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Naidu bets on winning horses

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD May 20. The TDP supremo, N. Chandrababu Naidu, is reported to have made it clear to his partymen that only those with `a good winning chance' would be given the TDP ticket in the next Assembly and Parliament elections.

No amount of lobbying or pressure tactics by MLAs and MPs would alter this criterion for selection, he declared at a series of district-wise interactions with TDP leaders at the NTR Bhavan here today.

Although the general elections are a good 17 months away, Mr. Naidu made a rather candid review of the TDP's winning prospects in each Assembly constituency. In making the assessment, the TDP chief was said to have been equipped with reports from the State Intelligence, a private agency, the media and the party itself.

His inputs included the responses of partymen to a 70-point questionnaire circulated at the recently concluded district-level mini-Mahanadus where they were asked, among other things, about their own and the people's opinions about the functioning of the local MLAs and MPs. "Unless you are careful, it will be difficult for you to win the elections,'' he was quoted as telling three MLAs from Karimnagar district.

Mr. Naidu reportedly frowned upon the infighting among leaders in the districts and lack of coordination between MPs and MLAs in their respective districts. He advised the warring partymen to settle their differences in the presence of the district-level coordination committees set up for this specific purpose.

He disagreed with the assessment of partymen from Telangana that the Congress would stand to lose if the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) became stronger. In fact, the TDP itself would be hurt if the TRS emerged a major force in the region. "The TDP and not the TRS should gain if the Congress becomes weak'', he said.

The TDP chief expressed disappointment over the party's dispirited performance in Cuddapah district after the death of the former Minister, Badvel Reddy. He wanted the district leaders to develop a strategy to wrest the Cuddapah Lok Sabha seat from the Congress and identify good candidates for fighting against the CLP leader, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, in Pulivendla.

Among the districts with whose leaders he interacted today were Prakasam, Krishna, Karimnagar, Nalgonda, Cuddapah, Kurnool, West Godavari, Nizamabad and Warangal. He will hold similar closed-door meetings with partymen from Mahabubnagar and Medak on May 21 and Hyderabad and Rangareddi district on May 22.

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