TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu calls himself a ‘visionary’. It’s common knowledge in both the Telugu states how he never used his ‘self-smeared vision’ for the sake of development and only expended it to foster a regime of corruption whenever he was in power. His skills in tweaking rules and established procedures to facilitate corrupt practices have assumed legendary proportions.

Especially during his rule in Andhra Pradesh between 2014-19, he brazenly misused his power to flout guidelines for governance to suit his convenience and connivance: Naidu was so overconfident about his unilateral ways that he often ignored wise counsel from officials while manipulating norms and issuing Government Orders. In some cases, he did not even hesitate to overlook objections raised by the judiciary over some of the policy decisions of his TDP government.

Chandrababu’s signature style in his lust for corruption in various government programmes is typically marked by two components. Delaying projects way beyond their designated duration and, under this garb, needlessly inflating their cost estimates to unbelievable levels. The other key component in his plot is doing away with the conventional tendering process and awarding a host of contracts to his ‘influential’ cronies on nomination basis instead of competitive bidding.

Polavaram irrigation project, declared as a national project to fulfil decades-long aspirations of the people of Andhra Pradesh, is a classic example. The manner in which the TDP regime mishandled the prestigious mega project at every stage exposes Naidu’s betrayal. He treated Polavaram more as a cash cow for the sake of huge kickbacks from the contracting companies. Needless to say, these firms are owned by individuals who form the core of his own coterie.

Though his follies were thoroughly exposed, Naidu continues even till today to unabashedly claim that his regime completed 80 percent of the project works. In reality, what he presented to his successor YS Jagan was a platter full of travails as the damaged coffer dam stunted the progress of the project.

It not only set back the project by a few years but also resulted in a colossal waste of precious funds that were already spent. Not everyone intrigued by the logic (or the lack of it) of the Naidu government in reversing the order of the project works may exactly see through the real, nefarious designs hidden behind it.

By the time the TDP came to power in the residuary Andhra Pradesh post bifurcation, most of the project ancillary works had already been completed. This includes the digging of canals which were executed as a part of late YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s monumental initiative Jala Yagnam.

It was popularly perceived that the TDP chief, during his rule, would finish the remainder of works only to claim sole credit as the ‘architect of Polavaram’. Knowing Naidu’s guile and the trait to hijack others’ achievements, one foresaw this as an imminent eventuality. But Babu being Babu, he let the world know much later that he had different plans that, if executed, would benefit him immensely but at the expense of the state’s pressing irrigation needs.

While the entire AP saw the need for urgency to bring the decades-long Polavaram dream to a fruition, Chandrababu looked the other way, only eyeing a milch cow in it. In reality, Naidu was never interested in taking the prestigious project closer to its finality.

For starters, he was in plans to drag on the project works way beyond 2019 so that he could retain the power in the state and continue to pilfer and plunder the project funds unhindered for five more years. Understandably, the TDP chief’s plot for a prolonged Polavaram scam came a cropper as the electorate handed him a humiliating defeat while giving a resounding victory to YS Jagan’s YSRCP.