NTR family to hit roads for Naidu

The NTR family has warmed up to the Telugu Desam president, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, after he nominated Nandamuri Harikrishna to the Rajya Sabha, braving strong pressure from the backward classes lobby.

Mr Harikrishna, who has been associated with the TD ever since his father NTR floated it in early 1980s, is regarded as an ‘elder' by the family members.

Similarly, Mr Harikrishna will also field his son and actor, Junior NTR, and a host of film personalities to campaign for the TD, to help it avoid a defeat in the 2009 Assembly polls. Party workers got a foretaste of this when he invited a host of film directors, producers, actors and actresses to the NTR Bhavan before he left to file his nomination papers.

With his nomination to the RS, Mr Naidu has got cosy with the family again after a gap of more than a decade.

NTR's family had initially sided with Mr Naidu after the party witnessed a vertical split following the Lakshmi Parvati episode in 1995.

However, the family members, particularly Mr Harikrishna, distanced themselves from Mr Naidu within a couple of years.

Now, 12 years down the line, the TD supremo has been able to bring about a ‘political patch up' with the family in the hope that it would pay dividends during the polls.

It is to be seen if Mr. Naidu's gesture towards Mr. Harikrishna helps the TD, which is plagued by infighting and dissidence in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema and rattled by the separate Telangana demand.

TD sources claim that the entire NTR family barring the Daggubatis - Union minister Purandareswari and her husband MLA Venkateswara Rao who are in the Congress - has now pledged support to Mr Naidu.

Mr Harikrishna's younger brother and film actor Balakrishna has gone on record that he would campaign for the TD in the next Assembly elections.