Amid Chandrababu Naidus Bharat Ratna Pitch For Ntr A Look Back At Their Turbulent Relations

On Thursday, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) passed a resolution at its annual conclave Mahanadu, urging the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna on party founder and actor late N T Rama Rao popularly known as NTR. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu owes much of his political career to NTR — his father-in-law who had acquired almost a divine status as a Telugu film superstar — and the support he has had garnered from the NTR family. Close NTR, Naidu ties It was NTR who brought a young and rising Naidu from the Congress into the TDP in 1983, a year after he founded the party in March 1982. A year earlier, he had expressed his fondness for Naidu, then a first time Congress MLA and minister, by getting his daughter Bhuvaneshwari married to him in September 1981. Naidu, who was involved in student politics in Tirupati, started his political career with the Congress. He was elected on a Congress ticket for the first time in 1978 from the Chandragiri constituency. Marri Chenna Reddy was the CM in the Congress government from March 1978 to October 1980, when he was replaced by T Anjaiah who inducted Naidu into his Cabinet. It was during his three-year stint as the cinematography minister in the Anjaiah government when he met NTR and became close to him. After NTR founded the TDP, Naidu did not immediately join it. Contesting on a Congress ticket, Naidu lost from Chandragiri to the TDP candidate in the 1983 elections. It was then that NTR asked Naidu to join the TDP. Despite being headed by the charismatic NTR, the fledgling party needed organisation, administration, and management and Naidu slid into the role perfectly, preferring to handle party affairs than contest the 1985 mid-term Assembly elections, which the TDP won by a landslide with NTR taking over as the CM again. TDP old-timers say that NTR confided in Naidu and sought his opinion on various issues in light of his political acumen. They stuck together and navigated through the fraught state politics when Nadendla Bhaskar Rao revolted against NTR and formed his own government in August 1984 that lasted just for 31 days. Naidu, along with many other NTR supporters, mobilised support from various regional parties to back the TDP founder's fight to “restore democracy’’ until Rao was dismissed and the latter reinstated as the CM. In the 1989 Assembly elections, under NTR’s directions, Naidu contested on a TDP ticket for the first time from Kuppam, which he won, but the party was ousted from power. Naidu rose in the TDP ranks as the leaders went about reorganising the party, energising the cadres at the grassroots and strengthening it. Naidu vs Lakshmi Parvathi In 1991, it was during one of NTR’s small public meetings that Naidu saw a young woman, Lakshmi Parvathi, alongside him. She had earlier approached NTR to write his biography. Naidu and several other NTR supporters warily watched as the duo became close, and Parvathi who was already married, started accompanying NTR everywhere. In early 1993, the TDP leaders including Naidu saw a chance to consolidate support among the people and extended support to the women’s anti-liquor campaign which went against the then Congress government. It was also the period when NTR and Lakshmi Parvathi got married, with a chill developing in the relations between NTR and Naidu. TDP leaders said NTR then had ears only for Parvathi and several senior party leaders including Naidu were sidelined. In the December 1994 Assembly elections, Naidu played a crucial role in the TDP’s sweep with NTR at the helm. However, Naidu and other TDP MLAs and leaders watched from the sidelines as Parvathi started calling the shots, even “preventing” them from meeting NTR. Naidu’s 'coup' against NTR Naidu and other party leaders felt that an ailing NTR was about to hand over the party’s reins to Parvathi. In the last week of August 1995, Naidu conferred with many TDP MLAs, including Daggubati Venkateshwara Rao, the husband of NTR's another daughter D Puranderashwari, and slowly their rebellion gathered pace as more and more TDP MLAs, in spite of their admiration for NTR and reluctant to hurt his feelings, joined the Naidu camp. “The rebels were in a piquant situation. They had to choose between their aging idol and the young leader, between father in-law and son-in-law,’’ a former MLA said. NTR, who expressed no ill will towards his son-in-law in spite of the “coup” and the crisis that TDP was in, went to the Viceroy Hotel opposite the Secretariat in Hyderabad where the rebels were put up, along with Paravathi but were asked to leave. Naidu’s coup left the NTR family members angry, confused, and distraught. They resented Parvathi but also did not want NTR to be harmed by rebellion. NTR’s two sons, popular actors N Harikrishna and N Balakrishna, quietly sided with Naidu and the coup was successful. On September 1, 1995, Naidu, then 45, was sworn in as the CM for the first time. Naidu had to then navigate through a minefield – from placating angry NTR supporters and keeping his loyal MLAs happy to pulling the TDP out of the crisis. But, more importantly, to keep his relations with the NTR family intact as he faced the risk of getting alienated from them. NTR family, Naidu equations According to TDP leaders, even during that period there were no public statements or spats between Naidu and the NTR family. The fact that Naidu’s wife Bhuvaneshwari was NTR’s daughter also played a role in negating any harsh reactions from either side. Their collective resentment against Parvathi led to their move to back Naidu silently even if they did not join him publicly. NTR died just four months later on January 18, 1996. While NTR’s sons, N Harikrishna, who served as an MLA and Rajya Sabha MP, and N Balakrishna who is a three-time MLA, kept their relations intact, NTR’s daughter Purandeswari distanced herself from Naidu. But Naidu did not depend merely on the NTR family’s goodwill for his continued rise. After the coup, and two years into his first term, Naidu was talking of bringing Information Technology to the state. His transformation from NTR’s son-in-law to the TDP's new face started from there. In 1997, Naidu interacted with Bill Gates in New Delhi, who assured him that if Microsoft ever opened another development centre out of the US it would be in Hyderabad. Microsoft India Development Centre was set up in Hyderabad in 1998. Naidu embarked on a mission to convert western suburb of Hyderabad into an IT hub, building Cyber Towers, and establishing Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy City, popularly known as Hitec City. This tech-oriented side of Naidu offset any negative impact of the coup. On the other hand, Naidu cemented the relations with the NTR family when his son Lokesh got married to Balakrishna’s daughter Brahmani. Purandeswari, who held Naidu’s coup responsible for the downfall of her father, joined the Congress in 2000 and avoided too much presence in state politics, not contesting the Assembly elections. For years, Naidu and Purandeswari maintained a distance. Even at family functions, they arrived and left at different times to the extent possible. Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated, Purandeswari quit the Congress and joined the BJP. In July 2023, she was appointed Andhra Pradesh BJP president. The first signs of a thaw in the relations between Naidu and the entire NTR clan was in August 2023 when they all came together to attend the function at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre where President Droupadi Murmu released a special coin of Rs 100 denomination to commemorate the birth centenary of NTR. Naidu, three of the NTR’s four daughters – Purandeswari, Bhuvaneshwari, and Lokeswari – sons Balakrishna, Ramakrishna, and Mohanakrishna were present along with several children and grandchildren. It was here that Naidu and Purandeshwari had a brief meeting while they were with TDP MP K Ravindra Kumar, then YSRCP MP K Raghurama Raju, who is now with TDP, and Purandeswari’s husband Daggubati Venkateswara Rao. The meeting made headlines as Naidu was then trying to get back into the NDA fold. After the TDP joined the NDA ahead of the 2024 elections, there seemed to be a patch-up between them. On June 5, 2024, a day after the TDP-led NDA’s landslide win in the state Assembly polls, Naidu thanked Purandeswari for her support. At the NDA meeting in Delhi too, the TDP chief acknowledged her role in the elections. Naidu became the CM again. While Purandeswari won on a BJP ticket from the Rajahmundry Lok Sabha seat, Balakrishna won for the third time from Hindupur. Their familial ties seemed to be reinforced again. Naidu's tributes to NTR Naidu always speaks glowingly about NTR. At the Mahanadu earlier this week, where he demanded Bharat Ratna for the TDP founder, the CM said that NTR had put Telugu people above everything else. “This was why he sacrificed his 40 years of flourishing cine career and founded the Telugu Desam Party. NTR took the plunge into politics not for power but to fight for self-respect for the Telugu people who patronised him for four decades,’’ he said, calling NTR a “matchless and numero uno personality”. A multi-faceted personality, NTR was an actor, director, producer, writer, reformer and administrator all rolled into one. He had acted in 300 films over 40 years.