The political watchers are increasingly realising that over the last one month, the name of Lokesh is not creating any buzz. He has not been speaking much and there are no statements from him. During this period, he hasn’t made it to the news media headlines too. Despite being the national general secretary of the TDP,, his visibility has come down considerably.

Time was when Lokesh used to be the first one to descend on any town where a TDP worker is harassed. He would go and console the kin of the harassed TDP worker. These days, the news about Lokesh is confined to Mangalagiri assembly constituency only. Time was when he used to land in any place from Srikakulam to Kadapa to remain by the side of the party workers.

The last time that Lokesh was heard was when he undertook a tour to his home turf of Kuppam. Soon after, the party was badly defeated in the municipal elections in Kuppam. He wasn’t present even during the review meetings held to analyse the causes of the defeat.

Interestingly, there are reports that several seniors have indicated that they would rather prefer to work with Chandrababu Naidu and not under Lokesh Babu. Also,reports say that there is a perceptional difference between the father and son..While Chandrababu, who is a veteran of many election battles, feels that the TDP should have alliance with other parties to win the next elections, Lokesh strongly opines that the TDP should go it alone. It remains to be seen as to how Lokesh rediscovers himself and bounces back. 

In the whole episode of TDP General Secretary Lokesh Babu’s arrest in Guntur, know who is the happiest? The TDP cadres. Yes. Unbelievable but true. The TDP is happy that finally they have got an issue to fight for. There’s a leader who is not arrested for past deeds like botched up dairies, sold out land deals.

Here was Lokesh, who was arrested for consoling a bereaved family. The girl was brutally murdered by a maniac youth who was spurned by her. This in itself evoked a lot of sympathy. When Lokesh went to console them, why should the YSRCP government arrest him? By arresting him, the YSRCP government lost some sympathy and Lokesh gained a lot of support.

Moreover, the way the police treated Lokesh too has created sympathy for Lokesh. He was held by the collar, dragged away and bundled into the police vehicle. All this has created sympathy for Lokesh. Also, shifting of Lokesh from one police station to another and registering a case very late have also turned out to be beneficial for Lokesh. The spontaneous protests across the state are an indication that the YSRCP has handed a potent weapon to the TDP. Hence the TDP cadres are happy.

Even YSRCP insiders feel that the police were over-enthusiastic and that there was no need to arrest Lokesh. By arresting Lokesh, many feel that the YSRCP scored a self-goal. This has given the TDP cadres, who were low on morale and down in the dumps all these days, a powerful stick to beat the YSRCP.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national General Secretary Nara Lokesh on Wednesday said a website, itdpblog.com, has been launched to protect the party’s cadres.

“The itdpblog.com website has been designed for the protection of party activists. This is another step in the direction of standing by the TDP family,” said Lokesh.

The TDP’s second-in-command said that the platform will empower the party activists to expose the alleged atrocities of YSRCP leaders on social media as well as bringing to light the difficulties of people and solving them.

He advised the opposition party activists to make use of the WhatsApp phone number listed on the website to alert in the event of any trouble from the police or YSRCP supporters.

“Along with legal help, the party will stand by you in all ways. To save people from the atrocious rule of Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, all TDP activists should take part in this,” he said.

TDP MLC Nara Lokesh has launched a scathing attack on CM Jaganmohan Reddy, saying that the YCP regime is bent on handing over valuable public and private properties in Andhra Pradesh to the Gujarat-based companies. CM Jagan Reddy has literally turned into an ‘Amul Baby’ by ruthlessly trying to give away all the long-standing dairies in the State to Amul Dairy. Quite alarmingly, the AP Government has stooped to the level of preparing to spend Rs. 3,000 Cr public funds of AP to pass on benefits to Amul.

Lokesh visited Vijayawada and called on Sangam Dairy Chairman and TDP ex MLA Dhulipalla Narendra who was released on bail after a prolonged legal struggle. Lokesh said it was only after Mr. Narendra successfully exposed the Chief Minister’s misinformation campaign on ‘insider trading’ that false cases were filed and political victimisation was stepped up against the TDP leader.

The AP Government would have to pay Rs. 500 Cr public funds towards principal and interest to Amul every year because of the CM’s wrong policies. Dhulipalla Narendra had exposed the wrong ‘insider trading’ claims with the help of a ‘sting operation’ in the Capital City area. The YCP leaders should explain whether it was wrong on the part of Mr. Narendra to give Rs. 4 more per litre additionally to the dairy farmers. Was it a crime to provide medical services to the local people by constructing a hospital? The Sangam Dairy was rendering wonderful services for decades but now it became a target for political vendetta.

The TDP MLC warned that some officers were implementing the partisan and factionist Raja Reddy Constitution and they would surely face serious consequences. The TDP would pay back with compound interest to each and everyone who were showing unde enthusiasm to victimise the opposition and to destroy the State.

TDP MLC Nara Lokesh has thanked Minister for Education Adimulapu Suresh for saving lakhs of students and their parents from Coronavirus threat by postponing the Inter examinations eventually. It was a bold decision on the part of the Minister not to blindly follow the adamant stand of the Chief Minister. It was indeed a victory for the virtual agitation and legal struggle waged by the students against the Government’s initial decision to hold the exams compulsorily.

It was Mr. Lokesh who first started the agitation for postponing the exams after students made requests to him on social media. He said now that a great threat to over 15 lakh students was averted with today’s postponement of exams. Had the Government taken the decision in the first week of April itself, over 10,000 students would have been protected from Covid infections. The practical exams conducted during the initial stages of Covid spread had led to infections among some students.

Mr. Lokesh appealed to the Government to take a conscious decision on the 10th class exams which were scheduled to begin in a month’s time. Any decision on going ahead with the exams should be taken only after a close review of the prevailing Coronavirus situation at that time.

On the Tirupati by-election result, Mr. Nara Lokesh said that it was a defeat for democracy and a victory for the YCP leaders. Also, the YCP’s majority was ‘less than half’ of over 6 lakh votes that the ruling party leaders projected in this election from the beginning. The YCP could get even this victory by misusing power and official machinery at every level. All ministers and over 120 MLAs were in the field to influence the voters.

Mr. Lokesh said that busloads of bogus voters were brought from other segments and other States. The media itself showed videos as proof of how bogus voters themselves admitted to their illegal activities. In addition to this, the police threatened the TDP agents, the officials worked for the YCP candidate and the volunteers committed all sorts of violations in favour of the YCP.