Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday brushed aside a recent survey carried out by a vernacular television channel. The survey projected that his party and the ruling Congress would be wiped out from the state if elections were to be held.
Naidu made his observation known to mediapersons at the NTR Trust Bhavan where he said that the survey was conducted to project one particular leader as the favourite. He said that the findings of the Nielsen and ORG-Marg survey conducted by NTV, a vernacular television news channel, are totally skewed in favour of this particular leader who is about to launch his own political party. The TDP chief did not mention former Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy by name.
The former Chief Minister said that surveys of this kind are traditionally conducted before elections, to feel the pulse of the people. The timing of the survey was a stark pointer that there was an ulterior motive behind the exercise, Naidu said.
The fact that results of the survey favoured one particular leader, and that the survey was conducted when there were no elections around the corner, pointed out that some people desired to gain political clout by projecting themselves as public favourites, he added.
He also said that this particular leader has earlier launched his own media house but still has used another television channel to project the report with the help of hordes of illegal money.