NTR Junior comes to fire up tepid TDP

A desperate Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has infused fresh life into its campaigning by invoking the ghost of the late NT Rama Rao, and perhaps sympathy, by getting its ailing star campaigner NTR Jr to deliver a fiery speech from his sick bed.

The grandson of NT Rama Rao has been out of action after an accident on March 26 while returning from Suryapet in Nalgonda from an election meeting. He suffered three broken ribs and injury to the lower spine.

With a spitting likeness to his thespian grandfather and similar histrionics and oratory skills, NTR Jr, an actor, had attracted huge crowds, something which even his uncles, actor N Balakrishna and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, have not been able to match.

But NTR Jr’s election speech on Monday evening has brought the smiles back to many a TDP worker’s faces. The address has been telecast across channels since Monday evening and has achieved high TRPs. “We will use it at all our rallies and meetings,” said Ramana an aide of former minister and TDP Vijayanagaram candidate, Ashok Gajapathi Raju.

Dressed in his grandfather’s trademark khaki shirt and pants, and a scarf with the party colours around his neck, NTR Jr’s, spewed venom at the Congress, and YS Rajasekhara Reddy in particular, apart from the Praja Rajyam Party president Chiranjeevi.

NTR Jr may have been physically weak but his delivery was replete with all the drama and histrionics one associated with his grandfather’s style. “Nothing will be left in the state if the Congress and Reddy are elected back to power,” he thundered. “No one invited Mahatma Gandhi or BR Ambedkar to serve people. A leader emerges from the society like NTR to ensure social justice. No one invited him to launch the TDP,” he said ridiculing Chiranjeevi for claiming he was in the fray only because people invited him.