Telugus don’t fancy Lakshmi Parvati’s political appeals

Estimates suggest there are around 25 to 30 lakh Andhraites in the state, though TDP (NTR-LP) workers put the figure at 50 lakh. Of these, more than a lakh are in Mumbai, and the rest, most of them labourers, are spread out in Bhiwandi, the power loom town 40 kilometres from Mumbai which belongs to Dahanu parliamentary constituency and Sholapur. With the TDP (NTR-LP) headquarters in the city located at Bhiwandi, Parvathi’s call is aimed at that class of labourers. A fact duly accepted by BJP, which is expecting her appeal to work in pockets like Bhiwandi, Sholapur and Dharavi, Mumbai’s slum centre. "With Chandrababu Naidu undoing populist measures of rice at Re one and prohibition introduced by NTR, sections of Andhraiites see her as the true TDP," a BJP spokesperson said. No seats have been offered to TDP-LP in Maharashtra, though. But Andhraiites in Mumbai seem unimpressed. For one, rarely does politics in the native state have any influence on the voter in the adopted home state. Plus, Chandrababu Naidu is being seen as a person doing a pretty good job. "It was expected that the populist measures introduced by NTR be done away with, since they were turning out to be uneconomical to maintain," Rao said.

He has also forgotton the aggressive anti-South Indian stance adopted by Sena in its early years to capitalise on its "sons of soil" motto and accepts that the party is "behaving itself." "It is natural that once in power, the Sena can’t afford to antagonise any section," he said. If at all the BJP-Sena wins Andhraiite votes, it will be on their own merit or demerits in Maharashtra and not necessarily because somebody has directed them to do so, he added.

Lakshmi Parvathi, wife of the founder of Telugu Desam Party, the late N T Rama Rao, who formed her own party after NTR’s son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu proclaimed himself the real inheritor of NTR’s legacy, was in the state last week attending a public meeting and making courtesy calls on political leaders. She met Bal Thackeray as well as BJP leader Gopinath Munde, the deputy chief minister of the state and later issued a statement exhorting Andhraiites in Maharashtra to "vote Sena-BJP." The Sena in turn promised that "his health permitting," Sena chief Thackeray would campaign for her in Andhra Pradesh.