NTR's family, TDP offer to revive award

Hyderabad, Jan 18 (IANS) The revival of an award instituted in memory of late Andhra Pradesh chief minister N.T. Rama Rao is caught in a controversy as both his family and the party he founded offered to fund the prize while exchanging allegations on the thespian's tenth death anniversary Wednesday.

N. Chandrababu Naidu, the son-in-law of Ramarao or 'NTR' and president of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) that he founded, offered to arrange funds for the award. NTR's son and actor Harikrishna also said the family was ready to contribute for the purpose.

Harikrishna joined Naidu in criticising the ruling Congress Party for discontinuing the awards.

"It is shameful that the Congress which is spending millions of rupees for its own meetings has discontinued awards saying it has no money for the purpose," said Naidu, who paid tributes to the leader at his memorial.

NTR's daughter and Congress MP Purandareswari, however, blamed her brother-in-law Naidu for the discontinuation of the award. She said during his long rule Naidu had failed to set up a corpus fund for the award.

Purandareswari, who was accompanied by her husband and Congress MLA Daggubati Venkateswara Rao to the memorial, pointed out that the award was not given even in 2003 and 2004, when Naidu was the chief minister.

NTR, the most renowned Telugu film actor, had come to power in nine months after forming the TDP in 1982 to end the Congress rule in the state. However, he was unseated by Naidu in a revolt in the party in August 1995. Five months later, NTR died of heart attack.

Naidu had instituted the NTR Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, which carries a cash prize of Rs.700,000. The recipients of the award include Bollywood's Dilip Kumar as well as Akkineni Nageswara Rao and Bhanumathi from the Telugu film industry.