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Guess who’s learning Hindi down south

Now that N Chandrababu Naidu is looking for a larger role in national politics, the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister is dead serious about learning Hindi.

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HYDERABAD: He goes through two Hindi newspapers every day and even has teachers to help him pick up the language.

Now that N Chandrababu Naidu is looking for a larger role in national politics, the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister is dead serious about learning Hindi.

Hailing from southern India, that too from the Rayalaseema region where Telugu is the dominant language and even Urdu is not spoken, unlike in state capital Hyderabad, it is not an easy task for him. But as convenor of the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) comprising six regional parties from across the country, Naidu knows he has to reach out to people in the Hindi heartland.

And the 58-year-old Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief is trying hard. He is learning Hindi from a journalist as well as a teacher and is taking help from his wife N Bhuvaneshwari, an entrepreneur who has good command over the language.

Naidu, who had learnt the Hindi alphabet in school, goes through both the Hindi dailies published from Hyderabad every day. “He makes it a point to go through the headlines, if not the entire text,” said a source.

“He is a very avid learner. The only problem is time. After spending a few hours on learning Hindi, he gets busy with party affairs. He tries to revive it when he has to address public meetings outside the state,” said a close aide.

Sources close to Naidu say though he began learning the national language in 1996, a year after he became chief minister, he focused on it only in 2004 after losing power to the Congress.

After forming the UNPA with the Samajwadi Party and other parties last year, Naidu realised the importance of Hindi for communicating not just with other UNPA leaders but also with the people at large. As the UNPA is addressing a series of meetings on farmers’ issues in different parts of the country, Naidu is delivering his speeches in Hindi.

In Etawah in February and Azamgarh last month, he delivered the speeches in fluent Hindi much to the surprise of his UNPA allies and the public. “Since he is yet to get a hold over the language, he is reading out the prepared text written in the Telugu script,” said a close aide.

Learning Hindi is difficult for politicians in the south, especially if they have no exposure to national politics. Former prime minister Deve Gowda, who is from Karnataka, had also stunned everyone by delivering his Independence Day speech in chaste Hindi.
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