Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu flashes the victory symbol during a rally in Tirupati to kickstart the party’s election campaign for the 2014 elections. Tirupati: The Telugu Desam kicked off its 2014 election campaign from Tirupati on Sunday, with an impressive rally led by TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu.
The rally wound along the arterial roads of the town to the Nehru Municipal High School grounds.
Thousands of cadres from across the district were present at the ground. Greeting the crowds with his “V for Victory” symbol, Naidu blew a conch to mark the campaign’s launch.
Addressing party activists, Naidu vowed to “move like a bullet” till the 2014 elections to bring the TD back to power, to offer good governance to the state.
He said that a strong anti-incumbency wave is sweeping across the country against the ruling party, and the stage is all set for the TD to return to power.
The TD chief said that the ruling party was so steeped in corruption that even its flagship welfare programmes are being affected.
He said Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had raised “corrupt anacondas” like late Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy who, he alleged, had amassed disproportionate assets worth Rs 1 lakh crore.
He alleged that YSR had left behind his son Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to carry forward the same “corrupt practices”, and called the YSRC chief a “mini anaconda.”
He challenged the YSRC chief to explain how that he had secured bail.
He said the Congress was trying to reap political benefits by entering into a secret pact with the YSRC and the TRS.
Naidu said that the Congress government led by Rajasekhar Reddy had unsuccessfully gone to court 35 times to tarnish his (Naidu's) image. Despite 25 inquiry commissions being ordered to probe various aspects of his nine-year rule, the Congress could not get anything.
