ELURU: A section of leaders in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) from West Godavari district on Thursday underlined the need for the party to re-embrace the pro-poor ideology cherished by its founder late N.T. Rama Rao so as to help itself regain its lost ground. They held the `abdication' of the NTR's pro-poor policies by the party top brass responsible for the party's debacle in the Assembly and Parliament elections.

Yarra Narayana Swamy, a staunch follower of N.T. Rama Rao and former Polit Bureau member of the party, and former minister Karupati Vivekananda sought to give an expression to the discontentment nursed by the intra-party old guards over the party's striking departure from the poor and downtrodden sections at a district-level party meeting. The meeting was attended by the party Polit Bureau member K. Yerrannaidu, official spokesperson Nannapaneni Rajakumari and former MP Kambhampati Ramamohan Rao.

Impact of reforms

Rama Rao could ride his fledgling party to power by pulling down the then Congress regime in the early 80s with a promise to guarantee food, clothes and shelter for the poor and strained his every nerve to fulfill his triple promises till he breathed his last. This pro-poor philosophy gradually faded out after the change of guard in the party, Mr Narayana Swamy recalled. The new reforms had set the government employees against the TDP regime.

Similarly, reforms in the power sector had put the then government in a bind over increasing the tariff for agriculture, triggering violent protest among farmers against the party.

Minorities, Dalits, weavers and weaker sections also got alienated from the party due to a variety of reasons, forcing the TDP to face the waterloo in the elections, Mr. Narayana Swamy explained.

Mr. Yerrannaidu informed the party cadre that the TDP high command had constituted a five-member committee to frame an alternative economic policy to take care of the welfare of the poor and reforms with an equal footing.

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