Five years after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of a much younger Jagan Mohan Reddy, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday was on course to lead his party towards a landslide victory in the Andhra Pradesh assembly polls, with allies BJP and Janasena Party (JNP) in tow.
In the process, he kept a vow he took in 2021, to step back into the House as Chief Minister.
In 2021, protesting some comments made against his family members, Naidu walked out of the assembly and said he would come back only after he became Chief Minister again.
Naidu's latest electoral triumph, where his Telugu Desam Party was ahead in 133 of the 175 seats as per the latest figures, comes months after his arrest in an alleged corruption case. In the outgoing House, TDP has 23 members.
TDP put up a good show in the Lok Sabha polls as well, leading in 16 of the total 25 seats, with allies BJP and JNP ahead in three and two segments, respectively.
Born on April 20, 1950, at Naravaripalli in the undivided Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, Nara Chandrababu Naidu started his more than four-decade-long political career on the student politics platform at Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati.
Following that solid foundation, Naidu (74) joined the Congress party and became a cabinet minister.
However, he later jumped ship to the TDP founded by his late father-in-law and legendary actor N T Rama Rao.
Naidu first ascended the chief minister's chair in 1995 and went on to become a three-time CM.
His first two terms as CM came during the era of united Andhra Pradesh, beginning in 1995 and ending in 2004, nine years at a stretch while the third term came post-bifurcation of the united state. Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh 10 years ago.
As the CM of the erstwhile undivided state, he emerged as the chief architect of modern Hyderabad, playing a key role in developing the hi-tech city and turning it into a major hub.
During the late 90s, Naidu played a key role in forming the Central Government of that time and the first NDA government formed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee was supported from outside by the TDP.
In 2014, Naidu emerged as the first chief minister of the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh and served it until 2019.
In his third term as CM, he championed Amaravati to be the capital city of the southern state but losing power left his brainchild as an unfulfilled promise, especially after his successor and YSRCP supremo Jagan Mohan Reddy dealt a debilitating blow to Amaravati.
Moreover, Naidu's arrest in 2023 under the Skill Development Corporation Scam case by the YSRCP government was the lowest point in his career.
After a pre-dawn arrest on September 9, Naidu spent nearly two months in the Rajamahendravaram central jail.
However, an interim bail on October 31, which was made absolute on November 20 set Naidu free to prepare for the 2024 polls, enabling him to join the NDA alliance of TDP, BJP and Janasena.
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