TDP supremo and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu today reached Chittoor district's Kuppam, his Assembly constituency, where he was accorded a warm welcome by his supporters and local party leaders.
He will spend three days touring the constituency.
While there, the former CM will reportedly meet the party workers of the Gudipalli mandal, and will convene a review meeting with the party's local activists in Kuppam as well.
Naidu's visit comes at a critical time - it follows the TDP's defeat in the panchayat elections in the constituency. The party's dismal performance is both embarrassing and significant as Kuppam has been the former CM's constituency for more than three decades now.
Sources suggest that the leader has made plans to tour the four mandals of Kuppam to mollify the angry and demotivated candidates fielded by the party for the elections. The candidates are reportedly unhappy with the TDP leadership as the latter, they claim, had not provided them with the support they required to win the rural body elections.
The TDP leadership on the other hand has been alleging that the ruling party, the YSR Congress Party, was able to secure a landslide victory by coercing some voters to support their candidates, and by luring some others with money.
This friction within the TDP is but a small part of the drama unleashed by this year's panchayat elections in Andhra Pradesh. The rural body elections have been marred by
controversies,
public spats between government officials and leaders of the Opposition,
post-poll violence and much more.