BJP ally turned foe, Chandrababu Naidu is in for a rude shock as it seems that he is now losing his popularity among the people of Andhra Pradesh. According to an India Today report, 43 per cent people want YSRCP chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy as the next chief minister of the state whereas only 38 percent of the people are supporting the incumbent chief minister, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu. It seems that despite hard-selling Amravati and pinning electoral hopes on the proposed capital city, Naidu is out of favor as far as the Andhra electorate is concerned.
In a way, Chandrababu Naidu has orchestrated his own downfall. He had lost the 2004 polls because of stressing way too much on the urban areas and somewhat ignoring the rural areas of the state. It seems that he has not learnt anything from his past mistake. He had suffered a shocking defeat in 2004 and political analysts blamed his overemphasis on urban areas for his defeat. However, in the present term he has been repeating the same mistake. This time around, even in urban areas, his entire focus is on building Amravati and hoping that people of Andhra Pradesh will rally around him because of the grand capital city itself. However, this is not the case, building a mammoth capital city while absolutely neglecting the rural areas has led to him becoming vastly unpopular among the masses.
What has costed him even more dearly is his new found pseudo secularism. Especially, after parting ways with the BJP and joining the grand coalition it seems that he is trying to imitate the pseudo seculars parties. Pseudo-secularism has already been discarded by the electorate throughout the nation and Chandrababu Naidu is no exception. In fact, his recent move of announcing the construction of a grand mosque of international standards spread over 10 acres in the upcoming Amravati city shows how he is wasting taxpayers’ money for appeasing a particular community.
As far as, his pseudo-secularism is concerned, the Tirupati episode has proved to be the final straw. He has been accused of plundering the Tirupati temple. The priests of the temple have also deposed that Naidu and his men have unleashed a reign of corruption on the Tirupati temple resources.
Finally, his ill timed break up with the BJP is also not giving him the kind of political benefits that he must have been expecting. This makes him look like a complete hypocrite who changed sides when he saw a political opportunity. Further, the way no confidence motion enthusiastically led by the TDP and Naidu was defeated led to a further loss of face for the TDP and Chandrababu Naidu.
Naidu has been continuously blaming the centre for lack of funds and has been at the same time indiscriminately spending funds for building Amravati. He has become the kind of chief minister who continuously frustrates his electorate by blaming the centre for everything. From a promising chief minister that he was, he has become an absolute non-performer.
It seems that the people of Andhra Pradesh are fed up of Naidu’s rule who tried to seek their support solely on one issue which is the capital city of Amravati. It seems that he is going to meet the same fate as his new found grand coalition allies.