Lok Satta takes TDP to task

Perhaps for the first time since its inception, the Lok Satta Party activists took to streets on a political issue – not against the ruling Congress, but against the fellow-opposition party, the Telugu Desam Party.

Taking serious objection to TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu’s allegation that the Lok Satta was nothing but a pocket organisation of the Congress and that its candidates were sponsored financially by Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Lok Satta activists staged a dharna in front of the NTR Trust Bhavan, the headquarters of the TDP, and demanded that Naidu take back his words. The TDP activists, too, made a counter dharna, leading to a clash between the two parties and they raised slogans against each other.

The LSP leaders said that far from being chastened by the electoral debacle and mending its ways, the TDP seemed to regard the electoral arena as its sole preserve. “A mature political party in a democracy should humbly accept the people’s verdict instead of trying to find scapegoats in other parties or blame the voters themselves. Perhaps they believe in single-party democracy,” they said.

Referring to the allegation that the Lok Satta seemed to have a secret understanding with the Congress since it did not field candidates against the Chief Minister and his son in the Pulivendula Assembly and Kadapa Lok Sabha seats respectively, the Lok Satta leaders dubbed it as not only baseless but also malicious. The party did field Mr. Gudipati Prasanna Kumar to contest against the Chief Minister’s son in the Kadapa Lok Sabha seat. Despite its best efforts, the party could not find candidates in 45 Assembly and 10 Lok Sabha seats.

Pulivendula and Kuppam happened to be among Assembly seats where the party could not locate suitable candidates. The party allocated the Kuppam seat to the Backward Classes United Front which had come forward to field a candidate.