{"id":98683,"date":"2017-07-18T09:31:19","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T04:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/?p=98683"},"modified":"2017-07-18T09:31:19","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T04:01:19","slug":"venkaiah-naidu-and-his-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/venkaiah-naidu-and-his-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Venkaiah Naidu and his journey ….."},"content":{"rendered":"

The benchmate of Sultan Salauddin Owaisi and Jaipal Reddy in Assembly will be the Vice President of India. When he was 10 years old, Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu was attracted towards the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), BJP\u2019s mentor. Not because of its ideology, but to play kabaddi! He was an MLA from Janata party in the beginning.<\/p>\n

The love for the Indian sport set the tone for the son of a farmer from a village in Andhra Pradeh\u2019s Nellore to rise \u2014 from an announcer in Atal Bihari Vajpayee\u2019s programme in 1963 to an MLA to a spokesperson, MP, party general secretary to BJP\u2019s national president. And on Monday, he was named ruling NDA\u2019s candidate for the Vice-Presidential election.<\/p>\n

\"venkaiah<\/p>\n

The BJP leader lost his mother in a road accident when he was just one-and-a-half-years-old. \u201cThe party eventually became my mother,\u201d Naidu said, his voice heavy with emotion.<\/p>\n

When he joined Jan Sangh, which later evolved into Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), he was told that the RSS is a Hindi-belt outfit and promotes vegetarianism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walked down to the local RSS leader. He told me, I can eat as much non-veg as I want. And if I have extra food, I can give him too,\u201d Naidu laughs, sitting in his office in Parliament.<\/p>\n

He first met Vajpayee in Nellore in 1963. \u201cI was a student. My job was to make announcements in the meetings for him. I never thought as the party\u2019s national president I will sit next to Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani,\u201d he said.
\nSoon he went on to take up major roles and was at the forefront in the protests against Emergency imposed by then Congress government headed by Indira Gandhi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always critical about Indira Gandhi. I remember once she even came to campaign in my constituency for the Congress candidate,\u201d Naidu said.<\/p>\n

\"modi<\/p>\n

Soon he was elected as an MLA in erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh Assembly from Udayagiri seat in Nellore district for two terms: 1978 and 1983.<\/p>\n

While he has been enamoured by Vajpayee\u2019s charisma and oratory skills, he followed Advani\u2019s organisational skills and managerial abilities.<\/p>\n

Venkaiah is the senior-most BJP leader after Vajpayee, Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, and is often credited with mentoring ministers such as Anant Kumar, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Ravi Shankar Prasad. (It was during his tenure as BJP president that Ram Nath Kovind, NDA\u2019s presidential nominee, became the Dalit cell chief of the party.)<\/p>\n

\"venkaiah-naidu\"<\/p>\n

In the run-up to the vice-presidential election, Naidu has been hesitant, and in his trademark poetical style, often quipped, \u201cI am not for Rashtrapati or Uprashtrapati. I am happy as Usha\u2019s pati (husband).\u201d Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in fact, wanted him to run the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP is in minority, properly.<\/p>\n

Reminiscing the past, Naidu looks to the future.<\/p>\n

\"venkaiah-congrats-pti\"<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to change with time. Long ago, I used to protest against automation, participate even in anti-Hindi agitations. But can we do that now? Jaipal Reddy, myself and Asauddin Owaisi\u2019s father used to sit in the same bench in school. We were brats,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cMy son and son-in-law have business. I don\u2019t allow them to come in politics while I keep out of business.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he embarks on a new innings, many things will change in Naidu\u2019s life. But his beloved granddaughter may continue to call him \u201cTV thatha\u201d (grandfather ) as Naidu \u2014 all set to be country\u2019s next vice president \u2014 will continue to live under the limelight of public life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The benchmate of Sultan Salauddin Owaisi and Jaipal Reddy in Assembly will be the Vice President of India. When he was 10 years old, Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu was attracted towards the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), BJP\u2019s mentor. Not because of its ideology, but to play kabaddi! He was an MLA from Janata party in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[350,266,243,49652,307],"class_list":["post-98683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politicalnews","category-top-stories","tag-bjp","tag-modi","tag-rss","tag-venkaiah-naidu-journey","tag-vice-president"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/venkaiah-naidu-lf.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}