The question is just how potent that will be. The attack hardly generated the kind of outcry the TDP might have hoped for. But there is another reason for Naidu’s haste. After two successive droughts, most of the state saw a successful monsoon this year. Naidu would rather go in for the harvest now than risk another dry year. Besides, the Congress is in disarray and early polls could catch them napping.
The stamp scam spectre is also haunting the chief minister. After a senior Naidu minister, C. Krishna Yadav, was arrested by the Maharashtra police and subsequently expelled, there have been rumours of other TDP politicians being involved. Some say Naidu wants the polls out of the way before the dragnet could close in on others.