Daggubati Venkateshwara Rao, the elder son-in-law of late Telugu Desam Party founder N T Rama Rao and husband of Union Minister of State Purandeswari, has unveiled some dark secrets of the past, rattling the NTR family and the TDP leadership.
Venkateshwara Rao, who continues to be a bitter opponent of his co-brother Chandrababu Naidu, opened a Pandora's Box by disclosing that in his last days, NTR was so bitterly against Naidu that he had asked his film actor son N Balakrishna to 'murder' him.
Rao, now part of the ruling Congress party along with his wife, made this revelation in a letter he wrote to Balakrishna asking him to see the true colours of Chandrababu Naidu.
According to Rao, NTR was so much pained by Naidu's act of betrayal in ousting him from power that he asked Balakrishna not only to kill him but also to show him the sword stained with Naidu's blood.
'Do you remember Balaiah? In one of his last day, how painfully your father had told you something. If you are my son, kill that Chandrababu and show me the blood stained sword,' Venkateshwara Rao wrote in his lengthy letter. 'I don't think he really meant you to kill him but unable to give voice to his pain, he said that. What he said with great pain, you had preserved on a CD.'
Rao recalled many other things from the past, focusing mostly on the coup led by Chandrababu Naidu against NTR in August 1995, in which he was supported by NTR's sons.
Rao admitted that he too was involved in that 'sin'. But he wondered how Naidu persuaded Balakrishna and Harikrishna to become part of the coup against their father. "I also don't know what he has promised you now to make you campaign for the TDP," he said.
The letter was originally written in February, but Venkateshwara Rao decided to come out with it as he did not see any change in Balakrishna's attitude. The revelations come days after Balakrishna held his road show outside his sister's residence in Karamchedu village of Guntur and made a stinging attack against her and Rao for being with the Congress.
While Rao is a Congress legislator, Purandareswari was elected to Lok Sabha and is a Minister of State in Manmohan Singh government.
