Naidu in trouble as Mohan Babu leads revolt

Two great friends have fallen out, and accusations are flying fast between them.

Gearing up for a showdown with Telugu Desam Party president and Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu is party MP and film star Mohan Babu.

Babu has alleged that the CM has ganged up with Minor Irrigation Minister B Gopalakrishna Reddy to throw him out of the party.

''Naidu doesn't seem to want me in the party. The party leadership is in no mood to listen to my viewpoint,'' he added, battling the storm kicked up by his alleged attack on a senior party leader.

Following a ''personal'' dispute, the star allegedly beat up Sankara Reddy in the Sri Venkateswara University vice-chancellor's chambers at Tirupati on May 30. Two days later, Mohan Babu was arrested by the police following a complaint filed by the victim, allegedly at the behest of the irrigation minister. He was later released on bail.

The controversy forced the TDP disciplinary action committee, headed by former Vijayawada MP Sobanadeshwara Rao, to slap a show-cause notice on the actor, asking why action should not be taken against him.

Claiming that he is busy with his films, the star has not yet filed his reply, despite three extensions given by the committee. The final deadline is Monday, July 7. It is unlikely that Mohan Babu will meet the deadline.

Maintaining that the incident stemmed from a ''personal' dispute, Mohan Babu said he does not understand why the party was interfering in his personal affairs. He reportedly gave Sankara Reddy a loan of Rs 600,000 to buy a piece of land three years ago and the latter has not returned the money to date.

''If the party is worked up about indiscipline, why isn't action being taken other guilty members?'' he asked, in an obvious reference to Union Minister of State for Health Renuka Choudhary and former Cuddapah MP Palakonda Rayudu. If the former called film star and Rajya Sabha member Jayaprada a ''bimbo'', Rayudu's supporters pelted stones to disturb a minister's meeting at Cuddapah.

''Why these double standards?'' asked the actor. ''Moreover, I didn't beat him. It was they (Sankara Reddy and his brother-in-law who was asked by the star to collect the money) who quarrelled. I intervened only to pacify them... But the reports appearing in newspapers the next day, that I beat him up, are figments of someone's imagination.

''I have every reason to suspect that the chief minister is backing Gopalakrishna Reddy in his efforts to end my political career,'' Mohan Babu says, threatening to quit the party if the leadership ignores his complaint against the minister.

But why should Naidu support the minor irrigation minister? Throwing his lot behind Naidu during the August 1995 coup against N T Rama Rao, Gopalakrishna Reddy organised camps of legislators at a Hyderabad hotel belonging to his relative. He represents the Kalahasti assembly constituency in Naidu's native Chittoor district. Mohan Babu too belongs to the same district.

Naidu is visibly upset over the growing indiscipline in the TDP, but cannot take any drastic action, unlike his father-in-law, the late NTR who sacked 35 cabinet ministers in 1988 for alleged leakage of the state budget to the press.

As Naidu dithers, Mohan Babu has stepped up his campaign against the chief minister, accusing him of pushing the government into a debt trap. ''The state coffers are empty and Naidu has no money to pay even salaries of the government staff. His rhetoric is empty, and the frustration of workers will erupt like a volcano.''

Mohan Babu has a point, if the farmers's revolt at the Karshaka Vigana Vedika meetings at Eluru and Cuddapah is any indication. Even the Left parties's honeymoon with Naidu seems to have ended, and the CPI and the CPI-M have threatened to launch state-wide agitations even as the actor's revolt threatens to ruin the ''king-maker's'' career.