Bhuvaneswari steers campaign in Kuppam

Tirupati: Nara Bhuvaneswari, wife of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, is better known to everyone as the successful business person as she looks after the activities of Heritage Foods Private Limited. During the 40 years of political career of Chandrababu Naidu, she was never involved in his political life at least in a direct manner.

As the ensuing elections have emerged as a tightrope walk for both ruling TDP and opposition YSRCP, the parties have been employing all their resources to become victorious. May be for this reason, for the first time Bhuvaneswari has been getting ground level reports from various sources in both Kuppam and Mangalagiri and reviewing the situation with local leaders.

Though YSRCP chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy has been utilising the services of his mother YS Vijayamma and sister Sharmila during election time, he never involved his wife in active politics. For the first time both Naidu and his son Lokesh have been contesting in the Assembly polls and were not in a position to concentrate on each other's constitutencies. Bhuvaneswari has grabbed the opportunity to make her presence felt in political careers of both her husband and son.

For this, initially she chose the teleconference way rather than making her physical presence in the constituencies. She has already interacted with the constituency coordination committee members of Kuppam twice, on March 27 and April 2, as Naidu has been contesting there and gave them the required directions.

Details of her involvement in Mangalagiri constituency from where her son Lokesh is contesting are not immediately known, but it was confirmed that she has been concentrating there too. During the course of her teleconference with Kuppam leaders on Tuesday, she reportedly mentioned that she had chosen to talk to them first though she got the reports from both the constituencies, said a leader.

Giving directions to local leaders, she made it clear that the party has been facing rough weather in 56 polling centres out of 263 and there should be no complacency in addressing this. Leaders should not have any ego in dealing with the public. Bhuvaneswari asked the mandal party in-charges to concentrate on weak polling booths, particularly in Kuppam mandal and correct the lapses to ensure better position.

She said a list of the 56 booths where more focus is required will be sent to them. She stressed that the leaders should tell the people that Naidu will come back to power beyond any doubts and will resolve all pending issues without further delay and assured that she will be available for the people of Kuppam always as their leader will be busy as Chief Minister.

RESCO (Rural Electric Co-Operative Society Ltd) chairman P S Munirathnam, MLC G Sreenivasulu, agriculture market committee chairman R Chandra Sekhar, Naidu's personal assistant P Manohar who have been in-charges for the four mandals in the constituency assured Bhuvaneswari that they had been working in unity and would see that CM win with a record majority. About 1,500 party leaders and cadres took part in the teleconference and they were surprised by the way the CM's wife has been taking care of the constituency for the first time.