Naidu and Daggubati are married to NTR’s daughters Bhuvaneswari and Purandeswari, respectively. The TDP founder has four daughters and eight sons, most famous of them being Telugu film-star-cum-TDP MLA Nandamuri Balakrishna aka Balayya.
While Bhuvaneswari, Managing Director of Heritage Foods, is not directly involved in politics, her akka Purandeswari, a former Union minister with the Congress, is now the Andhra state BJP president.
Through the 1980s and 90s, Naidu and Daggubati were locked in an intense, often bitter, yet largely covert battle for control of the TDP’s political power.
“They were like two power centres then, north-south poles, and we leaders, legislators, often found ourselves caught in between,” Gorantla Butchaiah Chowdary, one of the senior-most TDP leaders and a seven-time MLA, said to ThePrint.
Though he joined the TDP almost two years after it was formed in 1982, Naidu—previously with the Congress—was quick to impress NTR with his organisational skills. His political shrewdness, employment of chances, situations swiftly elevated stature in the party and eventually helped him become the TDP chief and AP CM first time in 1995.
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Shy of controversies
On the other hand, Daggubati, a physician by training and an idealist who tends to avoid controversies, soon lost out to Naidu, finding himself in political wilderness. During the book release function, he even acknowledged their past hostility.
“Chandrababu Naidu came here today. People sometimes mention our rivalry. It is a fact. But we should forget some things and move on,” Daggubati said humorously as the AP CM, along with the audience, broke into laughter.
“The future should be optimistic,” Daggubati added, quickly clarifying that “I have no desires. I am leading a contented, jolly good life with family, friends, even writing books. This is also a happy way of living one’s life,” he said as Purandeswari, also seated on stage, smiled in approval.
Naidu in his address reflected on his association with Daggubati. “He is a special person in our family, an analytical mind, filled with various thoughts,” he said.
Naidu added they used to operate with a learning spirit, appearing before NTR early morning and effectively fulfilling the assigned duties by the end of the day.
“I was surprised when I came to know he was writing books. Playing badminton in the mornings, rummy in the afternoon, chatting with friends, reading bedtime stories to the grandchildren…. What a wonderful life,” Naidu noted, saying he should take inspiration from his “co-brother” to plan his retired life.
Daggubati, who invited Naidu to the function, felicitated him, and the two posed for photos.
Parting of ways
The todallullu (co-brothers in Telugu) have finally, and publicly, resolved to forget the past, but what transpired in the mid-1990s that it took them three decades to bury the hatchet?
Naidu was AP’s finance and revenue minister and Daggubati the TDP parliamentary party leader when a widespread discontent in the party, primarily over NTR’s second wife Lakshmi Parvathi’s rising influence on the patriarch and her alleged interference in party and government affairs, escalated into a what is referred to as “palace coup” in August 1995, leading to NTR stepping down as CM.
Despite their ongoing differences, Naidu managed to convince Daggubati to rally in support of his cause.
In his book Maverick Messiah, A political biography of NT Rama Rao, journalist and political historian Ramesh Kandula writes, “According to Daggubati, Chandrababu offered him the position of deputy CM … The only common ground between them at this stage was their antipathy towards Parvathi.”
But after Naidu became CM on 1 September, 1995, Daggubati was sidelined, even denied a berth in the cabinet.
“Daggubati realised he was taken for a ride. Chandrababu’s stand was that since Harikrishna (NTR’s son) was already in the cabinet, it was improper to have another family member as a minister. ‘I never promised him the deputy CM post. People would have detested us if Daggubati was installed’,” Kandula quotes Naidu as having said.
A dejected Daggubati, thanks to mediation initiated by NTR’s son Jayakrishna, went back to NTR along with 14 MLAs on 16 October, 1995, a month-and-a-half after the “coup”.
“Chandrababu, of course, was ready for the eventuality. He had more than enough TDP MLAs, MPs and other party functionaries supporting him. He was now free of the burden of another power center in the party,” writes Kandula.
Thus, Naidu and Daggubati parted ways in 1995.
Within five months of the “coup” NTR passed away in January 1996. Daggubati fell out with Parvathi, and joined forces with NTR’s other son Harikrishna to form Anna TDP in 1999. But this venture, too, failed and Daggubati went into hibernation.
Daggubati’s previous books include Oka Charitra, Konni Nijalu (One history, some facts), 2009, where he presents his version of events, particularly about the 1995 coup.
According to Gorantla, Daggubati and his wife attempted to rejoin TDP but Naidu was averse. In 2004, in a move viewed as inexcusable by NTR admirers, the Daggubati couple joined the Congress, NTR’s arch-rival, often referred to by him as Dushta (Evil). They did well there, especially Purandeswari.
Daggubati was elected Congress MLA twice from Parchuru in 2004 and 2009, a seat he had won thrice on the TDP ticket before jumping ship.
After announcing his political retirement in 2014, Daggubati joined Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party in 2019, aligning with Chandrababu Naidu’s rival. However, after narrowly losing the 2019 Assembly election from Parchuru, he retreated to a relaxed lifestyle.
Meanwhile, elected to Lok Sabha twice from the Congress in 2004 and 2009, the suave and well-spoken Purandeswari served as Minister of State in the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Ministry of Commerce and Industry in the Manmohan Singh governments. She is currently a BJP MP representing Rajahmundry, and the party’s AP unit chief.
Purandeswari’s entry and continuity in politics, political observers say, ensured that Chandrababu is not the sole inheritor of NTR’s political legacy. Her bitterness with Naidu, if any, has diluted over the last few years, especially since the BJP-TDP patch-up in 2024.
How Nandamuri branches spread
In her address at the book release, Sitharaman, speaking in Telugu, expressed delight at watching the highly accomplished family members, in fine arts, literature, politics, societal service coming together and called it “an inspiration for the society”.
Several of NTR’s surviving sons are associated with the Telugu film industry, building on their father’s legacy, and have also entered politics.
All of NTR’s children—to varying degrees—could never come to accept Parvathi.
Basava Tarakam, mother to all of NTR’s children, died in 1985 of cancer. Despite his family’s disapproval, an ageing NTR in 1993 married Parvathi, a lesser-known Telugu writer, who approached him to write his biography. It was also her second marriage.
Among all of NTR’s children, Harikrishna, “the temperamental son” came across as the most hostile towards Parvathi.
After NTR’s demise in 1996, Lakshmi, with support of about 40 legislators, formed the NTR Telugu Desam Party and was elected MLA in a by-poll that year from Pathapatnam in north Andhra. In the 1996 general elections, NTR TDP contested all 42 Lok Sabha seats, projecting “a wronged widow pleading for justice image”. While it managed to garner some sympathy and secure over 10 percent of the vote, unsettling Naidu, it failed to win any seats—then or ever after.
Parvathi never recovered from the string of defeats. In 2014, she joined YSRCP and can now be sometimes seen on Sakshi TV venting her still intact fury against Naidu.
Kandula writes, “The impression given by the media during the (1995) palace coup was that the entire family was behind Naidu in his fait accompli. Except for Harikrishna, nobody in NTR’s family ever spoke about their feelings in public. Balakrishna, at the peak of his career in films, was seen with Naidu during this crucial period, but he too never made any public comments.
NTR’s children initially stayed away from politics and kept a low public profile. During the “coup,” Jayakrishna, Saikrishna, and Mohana Krishna remained neutral, while Jayashankara Krishna opposed it. Harikrishna and Ramakrishna sided with Naidu, while Balakrishna, though aligned with Naidu, attempted to mediate and find a middle ground.
Among his daughters, Lokeswari and Uma Maheswari lived outside Hyderabad and had no role in the developments, while Bhuvaneswari followed husband Naidu. Purandeswari’s part remained unclear.
“Thus, the reports about NTR’s entire family supporting Chandrababu were not exactly true. However, the fact that Daggubati and Harikrishna, the two prominent faces in the family, stood behind Naidu served the optics well for the rebel group,” Kandula wrote in his book.
Harikrishna, was the charioteer/driver in the 1980s of NTR’s Chaitanya Ratham (campaign vehicle). Much before Balakrishna, he won the 1996 by-poll from Hindupur, their father’s assembly constituency.
When Naidu did not re-induct him in the cabinet following the by-poll win, he joined Daggubati to launch Anna TDP in 1999. At the time he said, “The TDP leadership wants to bury NTR’s legacy.”
The party flopped the same year, with Harikrishna himself losing from Gudivada in the family’s home-turf in coastal AP.
The 1999 poll results though handed the TDP an impressive 180 MLAs, fortifying Naidu’s position in the state and national politics. The AP people’s verdict also largely settled the NTR political legacy inheritance question.
Harikrishna later returned to the TDP, and this time Naidu made him Rajya Sabha MP in 2008. He resigned in 2013, reacting emotionally to the UPA decision to divide AP and create Telangana. He died in a car accident on the Hyderabad-Guntur highway in 2018.
Rise of grandsons
The most popular of NTR’s grandsons, apart from TDP general secretary and minister Nara Lokesh, is Harikrishna’s son Junior NTR.
Having acquired the looks and acting prowess of his legendary grandfather, he is an A lister in Tollywood, gaining global fame with RRR.
When the TDP was down in the dumps five years ago there were whispers to let Jr NTR take over the party reins. His brush with politics so far has been campaigning for the TDP in the 2009 polls.
Balakrishna’s son, Mokshagna, is set to make his film debut soon—following a path where success in Tollywood often serves as a stepping stone to politics for legacy families in the state.
(Edited by Sudha V)
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