Daggubati Purandeswari: Victim of internal BJP and family politics

HYDERABAD: The day BJP named Daggubati Purandeswari, the 54-year-old daughter of Andhra Pradesh's late CM NT Rama Rao, as its Rajampet candidate, the TDP-BJP alliance in Andhra Pradesh ran into rough weather with her brother-in-law N Chandrababu Naidu taking strong exception to his alliance partner fielding "weaker" candidates in its share of assembly and Lok Sabha seats.

If at all she can be termed a weak candidate, it is because of the constituency allotted to her, said a relative who did not want to be named.

"Purandeswari could not get Visakhapatnam seat as the BJP preferred its AP president Kambampati Haribabu there. And Naidu was not willing to cede Vijayawada seat to BJP, making her chances tough," this person said.

But the two allies have sunk their differences and insist that the fight was not over the NTR family feud at all. Refuting rumours that Naidu was upset with BJP offering a ticket to her, a senior TDP leader and close aide of Naidu said, "The relations between the two families are neither very comfortable to support her nor so hostile to snub her politically. In fact, TDP, which is keen to come back to power after being rejected twice by the electorate, cannot afford to sever relations with BJP to settle scores with Purandeswari's family."

Echoing similar views, BJP's AP spokesperson Sudhish Rambhotla said, "It is not true that the alliance came into difficulties because we offered a ticket to Purandeswari. While it is BJP's prerogative to offer tickets to its candidates in its share of seats, TDP was raising objection to certain candidates terming them as weak."

Political analyst C Narasimha Rao terms Purandeswari as "a weak candidate but (she) could do well from a seat where the cadre of both the allies, especially TDP that has better organisational strength, (works) in tandem." After a decade as Union minister of state for human resources and commerce, Purandeswari now finds herself at a crossroads in her political career. Her close relatives and friends say she's a victim of both internal party (BJP) and family politics.

At Rajampet constituency in the Rayalaseema region, she faces tough competition from her former Union cabinet colleague and six-time Lok Sabha winner A Sai Pratap and YSR Congress's P Mithun Reddy in YSR Kadapa district, named after late Congress strongman YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

Purandeswari is a two-time Congress MP from Bapatla and Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituencies in the coastal Andhra region. She was in fact more keen to contest from either her current Visakhapatnam seat or her father's home district Vijayawada. The Kuchipudi dancer, who quit Congress in protest against the way the state was bifurcated against the interests of the people of Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra, together called Seemandhra, joined the saffron party last month. A gemology graduate from Chennai's South Indian Educational Trust and Women's College, she joined BJP on an assurance from its leadership that she would get a ticket to contest for the Lok Sabha, preferably Visakhapatnam, said her friends. "She is one of the finest and most decent politicians I have seen, who exceeded expectations and received accolades not just from Indian but even global policymakers," said Y Harish Chandra Prasad, chairman of the Malaxmi group. "She fought in her own dignified style to protect the interests of Seemandhra region during the state bifurcation process," said Prasad, a family friend.

Purandeswari is the elder sister of TDP Naidu's wife Bhuvaneswari. She entered electoral politics in 2004 after differences with her sister's husband. Though the former Union minister and her husband enjoyed good relations with Naidu even when the latter toppled NTR's government in August 1995 to become chief minister, relations were strained later when Naidu apparently sidelined Dagguabati's family. Purandeswari's husband Venkateswara Rao, who was in the cabinet of NTR, initially joined hands with Naidu in toppling his father-in-law's government but later felt humiliated and distanced himself from Naidu and joined Congress.