Ramoji’s pressure on Naidu

TDP supremo and former chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu is under a different type of pressure from a special person. Eenadu group chairman Ch Ramoji Rao has been asking him to join hands with megastar Chiranjeevi so that the duo can form a government after the 2009 elections in the State.

In fact, this pressure has been going on for sometime, ever since Chiranjeevi announced his intentions to join politics last fortnight. As a result of it, Naidu has agreed to meet Chiranjeevi at his residence a couple of days before the latter's Tirupati public meeting.

Expectedly, only "Saakshi" Telugu daily belonging to Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy's son Jaganmohan Reddy carried this story prominently this week.

TDP supporter and film producer Aswini Dutt has taken the initiative of arranging a meeting between the two.

Surprisingly, both Naidu and Chiranjeevi are reluctant to have any tie up with one another, due to different reasons. While Naidu is confident of coming back to power on his own, Chiranjeevi too is equally confident of mustering sufficient number of seats based on his charisma.

But sources close to Chiranjeevi said that ever since the megastar got in touch with Ramoji some time back, the latter has been advising him to go carefully and have a fool proof arrangement.

Ramoji's view is simple: Remove the YSR government from power first and the rest can be sorted out later.

Ramoji, who has been waging an open battle against YSR, has made no secret of his anger against the present Congress government in the State. His belief is that once YSR is dethroned, the Congress will not have a strong leader and will eventually wither away like in Tamil Nadu.

Ramoji has been asking both Naidu and Chiranjeevi to bury the hatchet for a while and form an anti-YSR combine before 2009 elections. If they succeed, later they can fight with each other on a long time basis. According to Ramoji's assessment, sources say, once out of power, YSR will lose his steam and become a small time operator.

Sources close to Naidu said that though TDP chief is not so happy about this line of argument, he is not averse to a post-poll patch up with Chiranjeevi, if that helps in forming a TDP-led Govt.

Presently, Naidu is of the view that TDP at the worst may fall short of 20 to 30 seats for simple majority.

Chenna Krishnaiah a YSR follower??

Kadapa-based Chenna Krishnaiah, who created anxious moments to Chiranjeevi on "Praja Rajyam" party issue, is suspected to be a mole of Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.

Chenna Krishnaiah, who applied to Election Commission of India for registration of a new political party by name "Praja Rajyam" a couple of weeks ago and announced the launch of the party at Kadapa on August 25, just a day before Chiranjeevi announced the party at Tirupati meeting, finally withdrew his application with the EC authorities, after a lot of negotiations with Chiranjeevi's team. He was offered not only a membership in the Chiranjeevi party, but also a key position in the party executive.

Yet, sources in the Chiru camp suspect that Chenna Krishnaiah could be a Congress mole. According to these sources, the Chief Minister managed to find out Chiru's proposed party names well in advance through his intelligence sources and after discussing with his close colleagues, he got the names registered through three or four different sources. That was the reason why YSR's close confidant Botsa Satyanarayana could disclose Chiru's party name much before the megastar officially declared on the Tirupati meeting dais. "If he is not a YSR's mole, how can Chenna Krishnaiah announce his party name, just a day before the Tirupati meeting?" sources wondered.

However, Chiranjeevi did not expect that Chenna Krishnaiah had already filed papers before EC. That was the reason why he made arrangements to register the name on the same evening before EC. But by the time Chiru's representatives went to EC, the name was already pending registration!

He have hope on only Nandamuri Heroes

With the pressure building up on the political circles, the Telugu Desam Party which is right now in a catch 22 situation when it comes to the forthcoming elections has been building up its ammunition in every way possible and leading from the front is N Chandrababu Naidu who is putting his master mind to test so that he can come up with the best alternative possible.

In this process, he has now resorted to the Nandamuri clan to take the lead and use their film appeal on the people of Andhra Pradesh so that the vote banks are intact. The first name that stands on the list is Nandamuri Balakrishna who has already expressed his willingness to support.

More than Balayya, Naidu seems to be keen on the charm and strength of NTR Jr since he is considered to be a better orator when it comes to public meetings. However, it remains to be seen whether the young tiger would be willing to oblige and if he does, then the combination of Balakrishna with NTR will be a strong force to reckon with for Naidu