Former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is celebrating his Birthday today. Fans and supporters have been trending the hashtag #HBDTeluguPrideCBN on this occasion. The very narrative of Andhra Pradesh has changed ever since Naidu stepped down.
The state has gone off the path of infrastructure and investments and treaded populism in the name of freebies. The state is already bleeding with record borrowings and has become financially sick. It takes immense courage and vision to create a name for a small state in a third-world country.
But Naidu has successfully done that. The problem for Naidu in the last term is he tried to strike a balance between his vision and welfare but that has proven to be costly given the fact the state finances were weak and the those at the center tried to pull him down. Once he is out of power, the ambitious projects of Andhra Pradesh like Special Status, Polavaram, and Amaravati were out of the radar.
The new Chief Minister set his priorities differently and there is not even an attempt to bring any new investment to the state where once Kia, Hero, Cadbury, etc have made their home. Between the ideology of a World-Class capital and three capitals, AP is left stranded with no capital and without a plan for the so-called three capitals experiment.
Naidu’s loss in 2019 means there is no hope for those who want to see the state a happening industrial destination competing with states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. Naidu struggled, faltered between 2014-19 but the fact remains he kept AP moving to keep the hope alive. Probably, he sank as he struggled to stay in the business of cut-throat Whatsapp Politics.
