Whatever decision Chandrababu Naidu was making, his supportive media never analysed and advised him how that particular decision would impact common man’s trust in the State of Andhra Pradesh.
During his tenure from 1994 to 2004 as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, N. Chandrababu Naidu became an inspirational personality for so many young people for producing a revolutionary vision document, “Vision 2020” with US consultants McKinsey & Company, as it proposed low-cost education and Healthcare, rural employment, and replacement of small investors with large corporations.
Even the Time magazine named him South Asian of the Year 1999 and also published an article saying, “In just five years, he has turned an impoverished, rural backwater place into India’s new information-Technology hub”.
In 2014 elections, however, he failed to retain power after two successive wins, losing power to the Congress Party led by Y.S Rajashekara Reddy.
But then again, his alliance with BJP and JanaSena made him form the government in 2014. JanaSena founder Pawan Kalyan had earlier said that he believed that Mr. Naidu’s experience would help the newly formed State.
After seeing two years of Naidu’s administration, Mr. Kalyan started criticising Naidu and his government.
Since then, things have gone wrong!
i) At the time when Mr. Kalyan was supportive, the pro-TDP media which is very influential in the State had been neutral towards JanaSena. When JanaSena came out of the alliance, the real hatred started. The media houses started attacking JanaSena with several unnecessary and upsetting stories. And that made people question the credibility of the media.
ii) Whatever decision Mr. Naidu was making, his supportive media never analysed and advised him how the decisions would impact common man’s trust.
Whether it be a case when he initially accepted special package from the centre, later demanding special category status, or whether it be a case when aligned with Congress Party in Telangana, his supportive media never measured the impact and tried to make him understand, instead it admired every step Mr. Naidu took.
iii) There were several other incidents that made people think of his softness in administration. Issues include bad-mannered behaviour of Chintamaneni Prabhakar, sand-mafia allegations, Godavari Pushkaralu stampede were among them.
