Suspense still on role of Balayya in Desam

Hyderabad Nov. 6: The Telugu Desam chief, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Thursday tried to play down the political role of NTR’s son and actor, Nandamuri Balakrishna. While addressing mediapersons at the NTR Bhavan a day after the TD’s Yuva Garjana, Mr Naidu said that he had not decided whether Balakrishna would be campaigning for the part in the coming polls. “This issue has not been discussed,” he said. “Even Balakrishna has not put this proposal before me.” Balakrishna had made his maiden political speech at the Yuva Garjana meeting in Guntur on Wednesday. When asked whether Balakrishna would contest the polls, Mr Naidu side-stepped the issue and said stars of the NTR family would conduct a massive campaign for the party. He also evaded the question on whether Balakrishna was a member of the TD and restricted himself to saying that NTR’s son had been campaigning for the party for so many years. The TD chief’s responses would give ammunition to his critics who have said that he would use the NTR family to come to power and then dump them. Interestingly, Mr Naidu, who is banking on cine glamour of NTR family to regain power, criticised the government for utilising the services of another film hero, Akkineni Nagarjuna, to promote the Rajiv Arogya Sri Health Insurance Scheme. The Congress government was hiring actors to hide its corruption and anti-people policies, he said. Mr Naidu claimed that nearly 25 lakh youth attended the Yuva Garjana held on Thursday at Guntur.