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Shape up or ship out: Naidu warns sitting MLAs

Shireen in Hyderabad

Even as the ruling Telugu Desam Party is bracing for the simultaneous elections to the assembly and the Lok Sabha, chief minister and party president N Chandrababu Naidu is getting disquieting feedback about the prospects of sitting legislators of his party.

According to an internal survey conducted by the TDP to evaluate the performance of the sitting legislators in the last four-and-a-half years, as many as one-third of the ruling party MLAs, including several ministers, have a very poor image in their respective constituencies.

Of the TDP's 210 legislators, including the chief minister and 35 cabinet colleagues, as many as 70 of them have been put in "C" grade, indicating that their chances of getting re-elected are bleak unless they improve their image and get along well with the party cadres in the coming weeks.

The "C" grade list includes seven ministers, namely, Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy, Kadiam Srihari, S A Khaleel Basha, Y Yella Reddy (all cabinet rank), P V Ratnaiah, Nimmala Kistappa and E Peddi Reddy (all ministers of state).

The TDP survey also ranked 50 MLAs as "B" grade, indicating that they enjoy a somewhat better image than their "C" grade colleagues and that they can improve their chances of getting re-elected if they put in more effort and change their style of functioning.

This list includes several ministers, including T Devender Goud, Kodela Sivaprasada Rao and Tammineni Sitaram (all cabinet rank). The ministers, in particular, have been told to improve their image in the coming weeks.

The third category of "A" graders comprises as many as 90 MLAs who are supposed to have bright prospects of getting re-elected because of their "excellent" image among the electorate. The list includes Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and several ministerial colleagues, besides a number of MLAs who have been getting elected successively on the TDP ticket since 1983.

The survey has fuelled speculation in TDP circles that the chief minister is toying with the idea of denying tickets to as many as 70 to 100 legislators for the ensuing elections. Chandrababu Naidu hinted at this during the Praja Deevena programme in the city on Sunday.

It is being said that he may show the door to the ''deadwood" among the sitting MLAs even at the risk of their defection to the Anna-TDP floated by his estranged brother-in-law Nandamuri Harikrishna. He would not mind even if some of the "liabilities" cross over to the Congress.

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