At 73, Venkaiah Naidu goes to Nellore; peers in late 70s going strong in politics
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, August 10: At the age of 73 years, outgoing Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu will be leaving for his native village in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, on Thursday. At the age of 71 years, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar fancies taking a shot at the prime ministerial post in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
At the age of 82 years, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, stormed into Taiwan to turn the global ‘One China Policy’ on its head.
At the age of 75 years, Navin Patnaik is still going strong in Odisha, and only a couple of months ago he scripted a re-engineering of his Cabinet to be poll ready for the 2024 Assembly elections in the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is in top gears to seek a third straight mandate at the Centre in the 2024 general elections for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lead the country for another term.
Modi would be 73 years old in 2024.
At the age of 79 years, the U.S. President Joe Biden is leading his country against the totalitarian authorities in Russia and China led by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping respectively.
To the credit of Biden, he has so far been successful in taking the U.S. out of the national depression post-Covid pandemic, while also seeking to establish the credentials of his country as the global leader by unveiling a slew of initiatives at the Tokyo Quad Summit in March, G7 Summit in June, besides committing to climate change response ahead of the Sharm el-Sheikh COP27 Summit later this year.
At the age of 77 years, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is holding forte in his state formidably, with firm grip on his party.
At the age of 78 years, BS Yediyurappa was eased out from the position of the chief minister of Karnataka by the BJP, while the party still wants him to be the captain of the election army for the next year’s Assembly elections in the state.
At the age of 74 years, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had the audacity to order the nuclear test in Pokhran, and steady the economy of the country from the American sanctions and lay the foundation of strategic partnership with Washington.
But at the age of 73 years, Naidu is leaving for Nellore to rest in a reclining chair and read newspapers, talk to the villagers and offer prayers at the local temples, take part in social works to befit his position as the former vice president of India.
The politics must have been unkind to him, for only a few weeks before he was asked to contest for the vice president’s post in 2017, Naidu was springing to his feet against restive Opposition in both the Houses of Parliament to steady the Modi government in turbulent phase of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
On Wednesday, Naidu, with family members proudly listening and nodding to his about nine-minute-long speech to the media persons at his Up-Rashtrapati Niwas, gave an account of his journey from being a legislator in Andhra Pradesh to the organizational positions in the BJP, including being its chief, while helming a number of ministries.
“Starting from day after (Friday), I will resume my unfinished journey,” Naidu said.
The outgoing vice president by his own account had only been on one journey and that was political.
About The Author
