After thirty-one months, Chandrababu Naidu enters the Andhra Assembly.

Amravati: Today, thirty-one months after he had left the house due to "insult to his family," Telugu Desam Party head Chandrababu Naidu made a surprise comeback to the Andhra Pradesh parliament. In November 2021, Mr. Naidu made a commitment to return only after taking office as Chief Minister, a position he attained following his party's resounding victory in the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections.
In the 175-member assembly, the TDP secured 135 seats, while its partners the BJP and Jana Sena secured 21 and 8 seats, respectively.

Images from today showed the entire house rising to congratulate Mr. Naidu on his appointment as chief minister. He has served as the state's chief minister for four terms already.

On November 19, 2021, he had left the assembly due to what he perceived to be insulting remarks made about his wife by members of the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), which was in power at the time. After fighting back tears during a debate on women's empowerment, he left the parliament with his hands folded.

"After this, I shall not be present at this assembly. Mr. Naidu had declared, "I will only return to the House after becoming the Chief Minister," referring to the Mahabharata's "Kaurava Sabha," the place where Draupadi was humiliated.

With 151 out of 175 seats won, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy's team won a landslide victory in the 2019 state elections. Important districts including Kadapa, Kurnool, Nellore, and Vizianagaram were swept by the YSRCP. In the meanwhile, the incumbent TDP managed to secure only 23 seats.

It proved to be a costly decision for Mr. Naidu to defect from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and join the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which is run by Congress, prior to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. After the TDP lost the assembly and Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Naidu was forced to take a backseat politically.

Should he have lost in 2024, Mr. Naidu's fifty-year political career might have come to an end. Nevertheless, despite being repeatedly ignored, the cunning politician as he is known has made a less than convincing return, this time in a coalition with the BJP.