Ms Purandeswari, the Congress candidate for Bapatla Lok Sabha seat of Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh comes across like a breath of fresh air. For a newcomer to politics and fighting her first-ever election, she is confident, assertive and has information about her constituency and issues on fingertips. She shows no trace of arrogance. Importantly, she seems to have no grudge for the person who caused her a lot of personal agony.

Purandeswari is the eldest daughter of N T Rama Rao, Telugu Desam Party founder and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. She is also the wife of Dr Daggubati Venkateswara Rao, former TDP MLA and Rajya Sabha member whose support N Chandrababu Naidu took to overthrow NTR in 1995, and whom Chandrababu sidelined once he consolidated his position in TDP and as the CM.

Daggubati recently joined the Congress and is the candidate from Parchur Assembly segment in Bapatla Parliamentary constituency. Purandeswari followed him into the Congress. Both are likely to romp home, going by popular opinion. Purandeswari's opponent is TDP's incumbent MP, Daggubati Rama Naidu who is her husband's uncle, a well-known producer and director of Telugu films.

Purandeswari who was brought up and educated in Chennai, is a gemmologist by training and she runs an institute in gemmology in Hyderabad. She spoke to Deccan Herald at her base camp in Karamchedu town, 80 kms from Guntur.

Excerpts:

Deccan Herald: Why didn't you join politics when your father was alive?
Purandeswari: My father did ask me twice to enter politics. But my children were small and as a mother I believed my children were more important.

DH: Why you? Why not his sons perhaps? (Two of NTR's sons briefly flirted with politics after his death, and unsuccessfully)
P: I don't know. He thought I had a good grasp of and understood politics.. He would often discuss issues with me.

DH: But why join the Congress considering NTR was so against Congress?
P: Because the Congress is concerned about the poor and about farmers, the two issues that were a matter of concern for my father. Besides the TDP is no longer my father's party. It has deviated from all his ideals. None of the concerns that prompted my father to start a party, especially to help the poor, are a priority with TDP. At one stage TDP's literature did not carry my father's picture... it shows how much they had deviated from his ideas.

DH: So what are the issues of the people in your constituency?
P: I have been touring for the past two weeks. Lack of water, both irrigation and drinking, is the major issue. Also the farming community is suffering. Several farmers have committed suicide because of unremunerative prices. To add to their problems, hundreds of belt shops (legal neighbourhood outlets selling unbranded liquor) have come up and liquor is flowing in the State. It has become a major problem not just because the man beats up his wife and children after drinking but because he is not shouldering responsibilities of the family. Other problems are increasing salinity of soil due to aqua farms, and the crisis facing the weavers because of 9.25 per cent excise duty. The Pulichintala project would have solved both irrigation and drinking water problem. The government talks all the time that it got huge amounts of funds but it has overlooked the basic necessities of the people.

DH: What policies of the present government you do not appreciate?
P: I don't believe in harping on hi-tech as an answer to all our problems. Ours is an agricultural economy. Computers won't solve any problem. Not that I am against computers but that should not be an obsession.

DH: What about the vision of the government for the State?
P: What vision? Where's the vision? An average farmer puts in 17-18 hours of work every day. So what's the big deal of working for 18 hours (an assertion of the CM to show he is working hard for the State's development). It (such talk) is only to project himself. My father also worked 18 hours. But never boasted about it.

DH: What memories come to your mind when you think of your father?
P: I can never forget the trauma my father went through and the insults my husband bore (Becomes emotional). He always reigned supreme but to see him without power, to see him suffering..

DH: What kind of person was he?
P: He was a very simple man. Had no arrogance. He never forgot his roots. He was never authoritarian or harsh with us. I don't recollect any instance when he shouted at us or beat us. He was not false in his concern for the poor. He respected all religions. When once he was asked if his saffron clothes did not send a wrong message in a secular country he said just because he showed respect to his mother by touching her feet, it did not mean that it was an insult to somebody else's mother. All mothers should be respected not just one's own, he said.

From R Akhileswari, DH News Service, Guntur (AP)
Date: Apr 21 2004
Source: Deccan Herald