After losing the Mangalagiri seat in the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections, Nara Lokesh was panned by his critics who accused him of political ineptitude and deemed him unfit for electioneering. A leader of the rival YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), Lakshmi Parvathi, had dismissed him at the time, claiming he could not do any good for the constituency as he could not even pronounce its name right.
Seven years on, the son of the Andhra Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo Chandrababu Naidu, has seemingly turned around his political fortunes after becoming the TDP’s national working president on April 15, after serving as the party’s national general secretary for over a decade.
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Speaking to The Indian Express about his new role, Lokesh said, “It’s a huge responsibility. The TDP is one of the largest political parties in the country in terms of cadre strength and we also have a distinguished history of 44 years where we have played a significant role both at the Centre and the state levels. We carry the hopes and aspirations of crores of Telugu people around the world. I am deeply humbled and honoured that I will be taking a larger leadership responsibility and I will make 100% effort to fulfill those aspirations”.
While Lokesh is optimistic about taking TDP to new heights, those close to him say his political success can be attributed to his ability to be persistent. “He lost 30 kg of weight in a matter of one year. This is only an example of how persistent he can be. While he lost Mangalagiri in 2019, despite being warned against contesting there again, he contested and won the seat in 2024,” said a close associate of Lokesh. The 2024 victory, achieved with a margin of a little over 9,000 votes, was notable as it came after Lokesh conducted a “Yuva Galam (Voice of the Youth)” padayatra across Andhra from January to December 2023 with a pause for 79 days after his father’s arrest in September.
Lokesh was given key portfolios including Information Technology, Electronics & Communications; Human Resource Development; and Real Time Governance in the Andhra Cabinet after the TDP came to power with a thumping majority of 135 seats in the 175-member Assembly in 2024. After the party joined hands with the BJP in the Centre as part of the BJP-led NDA, Chandrababu Naidu has become a national political player – his party’s 16 MPs played a crucial role in getting the NDA across the 272-seat majority mark in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, after the BJP was reduced to 240 seats.
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Lokesh was not to be left behind. “He is part of every prominent political event in the country from talk shows to conclaves,” said an associate of Lokesh.
Under Lokesh, will the TDP, which is largely centred around Naidu, change? “The TDP is a cadre-based party. It is the karyakarta who fights for us. It is karyakartas who bring us back to power,” says Lokesh. He also stresses on reforms to centre the party around the cadre, saying “As an immediate initiative, several of our leaders will be traveling to Singapore soon for leadership development in collaboration with the Singapore government. It is a capacity building initiative so that our leaders get trained for larger leadership roles. In my new role, I will aim to take all such initiatives further and ensure that the party cadre is well-recognised and empowered.”
According to those close to him, Lokesh holds cadre-level meetings once every week and has an ear to the ground. Alongside the cadre, Lokesh has also built a close network of young leaders around him. One such leader, Rajesh Kilaru, has become one of the TDP’s general secretaries. Those close to Lokesh said that the coterie around Naidu has dwindled over the years. “There used to be leaders who had formed a wall around Naidu earlier. This wall has been broken. Now father and son are on the same page,” said a leader close to Lokesh.
Naidu has also left key decisions to be made by Lokesh, those around him pointed out. “The proposal to elevate him to the national working president has been on for one year. His elevation has not come too soon,” a source said. According to the TDP source, Lokesh “has been working on becoming the working president for many years. It is just that he does not publicise it”.
Even within the NDA, he has been “involved in several leadership engagement efforts” and he might even sit in on NDA meetings in the future, say those close to him.
Envisaging a future of the TDP, 10 years from now, Lokesh said, “We have always had only one role, that is to represent the hopes and aspirations of crores of Telugus around the world. After the reforms initiated by our founder NTR garu and our president Chandrababu Naidu garu in the 1980s and 1990s, the Telugu diaspora has greatly grown across the world. Telugu people are well off and in leadership roles in the best organisations. All of them are eager to play a role in nation building. Andhra and Telangana are both the home states for Telugu people. The TDP will be an important player in both Telugu states and also for our Telugu diaspora.”
This would mean that TDP would work towards strengthening the party even in Telangana, where the party was decimated after the state was carved out from Andhra Pradesh in 2014, said sources close to Lokesh.
Several stalwart TDP leaders have expressed confidence in Lokesh. “Lokesh is now an accepted leader and an emerging power centre within the party. Most leaders are comfortable with him and even adore him,” a senior TDP functionary told The Indian Express.