AP State Planning Board vice-chairman C Kutumba Rao is seen more these days in the media criticising the Bharatiya Janata Party and the YSR Congress. He is coming before the media almost every day to counter the criticism on the government. He looks like he is representing the political party rather than holding a nominated post.

Holding the nominated post of State Planning Board vice-chairman, Kutumba Rao is justified if he limits his statements to the spending and receiving of funds between the State and the Centre. People will accept him if he clarifies on the utilisation of funds given by the Central government to the State in the last four years. There is a contradiction on this between the TDP and the BJP, with the latter claiming to have given more and the former not receiving any money.

BJP’s new MP G V L Narasimha Rao is seen more on the news channel screens criticising the TDP for misuse of funds. As if there is no potential material in the TDP, the Chief Minister is understood to have assigned this task of hitting back at GVL to the planning board vice-chairman. The planning board vice-chairman is going several steps forward to make political comments against GVL. While it is to be seen if Kutumba Rao’s political appearance on behalf of the government will be of any help to Chandrababu Naidu or not, people are drawing similarities now to how Government’s media advisor Parakala Prabhakar had done in the past.

Parakala, once a disciple of late P V Narasimha Rao, is considered a political strategist with some useful stuff. He was honoured and widely respected by Chiranjeevi and other leaders when he joined the Praja Rajyam Party in 2009. But, at one point of time, Parakala went to the extent of holding a press conference in the Praja Rajyam Party office itself and criticised Chiranjeevi before quitting the party. This act of Parakala had brought down his image among the political observers.

Later, when he joined the Telugu Desam government in the State after the 2014 election, he was not just a media advisor but was taken as a political strategist for the government. It was for this reason, he grabbed the chance to counter the critics when the Note for Vote case had hit the headlines in 2015. In a hurry to prove himself as a quality material, he made some comments in the media about the case and that had finally led Chandrababu Naidu to leave the common capital and start working in Vijayawada. The Chief Minister who dared the Telangana government of having his own police stations in Hyderabad to protect himself and his party and who pledged to stay for 10 years in the common capital and bring TDP to power in the two Telugu States, had to leave the capital overnight in a bus and stayed in the bus for two days before the camp office was ready.

What Parakala’s aggressiveness had done to Chandrababu Naidu in 2015 is likely to be repeated with Kutumba Rao playing Parakala’s role now.