telugu desham party

NTR, who was also known as anna (elder brother), toured the state extensively in what was called Chaitanya Ratham (literally - a chariot which spreads awareness), his "election vehicle", and made use of the immense popularity of his on-screen movie image (his image in roles of Hindu mythological deities - Rama, Krishna etc.) to win the election. The party was voted into power in a record nine months after its establishment on March 29, 1982. He became the Chief minister of AP by winning 203 seats out of 294. TDP also won 30 (out of 42) Lok Sabha seats in the 1984 Indian elections. This made TDP the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha as the Indian National Congress won more than 400 (out of about 500) seats to win the election. This was the first time that any regional party became the largest opposition party in India.

The TDP was voted to power in the State of Andhra Pradesh in 1983. During his first term, Rama Rao introduced many populist measures like selling a kilogram of rice for Rs.2.

In 1984, one of the ministers in his cabinet, Nadendla Bhaskara Rao removed NTR as Chief Minister with the help of then-governor Thakur Ram Lal, while NTR was on a foreign trip. Opposition to the removal was widespread, and after one month NTR proved his majority and re-elected as Chief Minister. Following this incident, NTR cancelled the assembly and went for fresh elections in 1985, where he won a landslide majority of 205 seats out of 294.

In 1989, NTR lost in assembly elections, but the National Front led by him won in the national elections and V.P. Singh became the Prime Minister. In this period Rama Rao played a significant role in national politics by pledging support to the then Prime Ministers V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar (who formed coalition governments in the absence of absolute majority for their respective parties).

TDP returned to power in 1994 by winning 219 Assembly seats out of 294 seats. Rama Rao was elected to be Chief Minister for the second time, but his governing cabinet and family suffered from what many political observers saw, as "unconstitutional interference in affairs" by his second wife. In 1995, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, finance minister and the third son-in-law of NTR (married to NTR's daughter Bhuvaneswari by NTR's first wife Bhasava Tharakam) brought down Rama Rao's government by gathering a majority of the MLAs in September 1995. The overwhelming consensus against this group led the Election Commission to recognize a break-away faction under the party's original name. Rama Rao vowed to go to the people, seeking a fresh mandate after this humiliation. However, within a year, he died, on January 18, 1996.

On October 9, 2008, TDP announced a major shift in its policy towards Telangana. The politburo of TDP, after long rounds of discussion, decided that it would favour a separate state for Telangana. Previously, TDP strongly opposed the separate state as it stood for a unified Andhra Pradesh.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_Desam_Party
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