Hyderabad: Clashes erupted between supporters of TDP’s Nara Lokesh and actor Jr NTR at a public meeting in Achanta village of West Godavari district on Monday, January 8, where former chief minister and party supremo Chandrababu Naidu was speaking.
The fight started after the Tollywood actor’s posters were waved amidst a sea of yellow-clad TDP supporters.
In the past, internal friction within the party between supporters of Lokesh and Jr NTR over Naidu’s successor has been reported several times.
In July last year, during an event hosted by the Telugu Association of North America (TANA) in Philadelphia, United States, a fight erupted between supporters of Jr NTR and Nara Lokesh.
According to TDP workers, the party’s national general secretary Nara Lokesh is the apparent heir after Naidu.
Supporters of Jr NTR think otherwise. They believe TDP is losing its shine in Andhra and desire the actor to lead the party in the upcoming 2024 Assembly elections.
Nara Lokesh and Jr NTR are first cousins who are sons of siblings Nara Bhuvaneswari and Nandamuri Harikrishna respectively. Both of them are grandsons of legendary actor and TDP founder NT Rama Rao.
The Tollywood actor had campaigned for the party during the 2009 Assembly elections but after the party’s win, he was allegedly sidelined. The actor has been staying away from politics ever since. In 2023, Lokesh extended an invitation to him to join TDP but the actor is yet to make a decision.
On January 4, YS Sharmila sent tremors into the political playground of Andhra Pradesh by merging her party YSRTP with the Indian National Congress. Although the political tide favours the present chief minister and YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy for the 2024 Assembly election in Andhra, there is a growing chorus to bring back Jr NTR to ‘rejuvenate the cadre’.
