Kesinani Nani humiliates Chandrababu in full media glare

NEW DELHI: TDP chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu faced a humiliating experience from his own party MP in Delhi on Saturday. In a brazen show of open-disgrace, Kesineni Nani, party's disgruntled MP from Vijayawada, refused to greet his leader with a bouquet in full media glare.

The shocking incident, rather unexpected, happened following the arrival of Chandrababu Naidu in Delhi. The TDP chief was invited to take part in the preparatory meeting for the implementation of the 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' initiative taken up by the Centre.

Nani was very much part of the TDP team of Parliamentarians to extend the customary welcome as a matter of courtesy. But, soon the unexpected happened leaving everyone dumbstruck. When party MP Galla Jayadev invited Nani to join him in presenting the bouquet to Naidu, the Vijayawada MP not only refused but even pushed the bouquet away disdainfully.

All this was captured in cameras thus making it an awkward moment for the TDP men. Kesineni Nani has been giving hard times to the TDP leadership with his mercurial ways for quite some time. But an open display of defiance and utter disregard of this sort for their president was least expected from him, making it a bitter pill to swallow for the principal opposition party in Andhra Pradesh.

Nani, who ran a leading private bus operating network till sometime back, has been in a 'blow hot, blow cold' relationship with the party's leadership. There were many instances where he crossed the 'Lakshman rekha' and even spoke against the party. After taunting the leadership initially with cryptic remarks laced with sarcasm, he began openly criticising the party and Naidu's style of functioning.

There were occasions when he sensationally claimed that the party's prospects in the 2024 elections were very bleak. However, as largely anticipated, the party leadership has been exercising maximum restraint in his case given its current standing in AP politics. The party is only fully aware of the far-reaching implications of cracking the whip against Nani at this juncture. The TDP has only three MPs including Nani in the Lok Sabha besides a few others in the Elders' House, the Rajya Sabha.

Nani, an enigma unfathomable

A two-time MP from Vijayawada, Kesineni Nani has turned into a tough nut to crack in the TDP. He won the seat for the first time in 2014 before retaining it in 2019. Despite his frosty relations with the party leadership, he managed to keep his stock growing as one of the only three TDP Lok Sabha Members who could withstand the YSRCP sweep in the state in the 2019 elections.

He particularly became belligerent with his political overtones towards the end of his first term. As observers feel, what initially started from him as strains of discontent due to unfavourable local political vagaries has turned into a full-throated voice of dissidence.

A few developments in the recent years, significant but unpalatable to Nani, are said to have precipitated the 'TDP vs Nani' feud. Firstly, he was unhappy ever since he failed to anoint his daughter on Vijayawada mayor's seat, which the TDP lost to YSRCP. Nani feels that his daughter had to pay the price for the infighting within the TDP in the city. Nani has been locked in a turf war with the trio of TDP's Buddha Venkanna, Bonda Uma and Nagul Meera locally.

Worse still, he is of late feeling edgy due to the growing clout of his younger brother Chinni within his Parliamentary constituency. Chinni was known to have played a key role at the ground-level in Nani's electoral victories in 2014 and 2019. The prominence that his brother is suddenly receiving from the party is making Nani restive, prompting him to suspect this as a tactical ploy to systematically cut him to size before the next elections. Also, Chinni's recent meeting with Vangaveeti Radha, the son of charismatic Kapu leader late Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga, came in as the final blow for the Vijayawada MP. Nani is now reportedly feeling insecure as he suspects that his brother had been given a free hand by the TDP leadership to expand his reach with all the known influencers in the constituency. Using Chinni, he could be pipped at the post before the next elections.

But then, Nani was not all about going hammer and tongs against Chandrababu Naidu. Showing the mercurial nature of his behaviour one more time, he has recently given the impression of mending his ways with his party chief. Like the proverbial 'return of the prodigal son', he even appeared to have become a loyalist again, when he invited Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh for his daughter's engagement four days ago. The way he rubbed shoulders with Naidu and Lokesh put at rest all the unease that was seen from the outside.

However, with his display of open-defiance – in the worst possible manner – towards his chief in Delhi on Saturday, Nani only proves that photo-ops were merely meant for public consumption and that they could not unravel the deep-rooted differences and distrust lying beneath.