With the TDP joining hands with Congress, the party founder N T Rama Rao's widow Lakshmi Parvathi has "requested" her deceased husband to "take rebirth to save the self-respect of Telugu people."
In a unique protest over Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu going against the party ideology to befriend Congress, Parvathi on Saturday placed a four-page letter at the NTR's 'samadhi' in Hyderabad.
In the letter addressed to NTR, she pleaded with him to take rebirth to cleanse the politics and restore the self-respect of Telugus.
The legendary actor-turned-politician had formed TDP in 1982 on the plank of Telugu self-respect. Within nine months, he stormed to power ending the virtual monopoly of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh politics.
The TDP had also fought against the increasing authoritarianism of the Centre over states and NTR waged a battle against the dismissal of his 20-month-old government in 1984 by then Governor Thakur Ram Lal, who they alleged was a puppet of the Congress.
Parvathi was the second wife of NTR. He married her in 1993, a few months before he returned to power with a landslide victory. However, NTR's son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu led an internal party coup and became Chief Minister in August 1995, citing Parvathi's growing interference in administration and party affairs.
NTR died in January 1996 and since then Parvathi has been living in political oblivion.
Parvathi, who joined the YSR Congress in 2014, alleged that by placing TDP at the feet of Congress, Naidu has given up the very ideology with which NTR floated the party. She wrote that this action of Naidu for personal gains caused pain to crores of followers and admirers of NTR.
"I am waiting for the day when people of Andhra Pradesh will get back their self-respect, said Parvathi, who sat in silence for a few minutes at the NTR memorial.
Chandrababu Naidu had met Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Thursday. They agreed to bury the past and work together to defeat the Modi government in 2019 elections.
Naidu, whose party quit the Modi government and the NDA earlier this year, said that he along with Gandhi wanted to forge a common platform "save nation, save democracy" for the opposition parties to defeat the BJP.
IANS inputs