Anna Telugu Desam Party
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Anna Telugu Desam Party (ATDP) was a regional political party in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The current existence of the party is unclear.
ATDP was founded on January 26 1999 by the third son of the Telugu Desam-leader N.T. Rama Rao, N. Harikrishna. The tension in the party had been known for some time, but Harikrishna waited until the 26th of January to launch his party, due to advice given to him by astrologuers. Harikrishna accused N. Chandrababu Naidu of corruption, alienation for grassroot voters and deviation from the ideals of NTR. Ironically Harikrishna had participated in the coup of Naidu in the TDP in 1995, when NTR was dethroned as party chief.
Harikrishna had been minister of transportation in Naidu's state cabinet and the president of the youth wing of TDP, Telugu Yuvatha.
ATDP worked hard ahead of the 1999 Andhra Pradesh assembly elections. An electoral alliance was set up with Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist) (who both had been TDP allies). A contversy surged within the alliance, due to ATDP line of wanting to ban foreign-born Sonia Gandhi from becoming Prime Minister. The left found that position unacceptable. In total ATDP launched 191 candidates, but the result was a complete flop. The party got 371718 votes (1,12% of the votes in the state), but could not win a single seat.
In the Lok Sabha elections the same year the party launched 20 candidates, and got 244045 votes (0,73% of the votes in the state), but no seat were won.