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There is a fine line between taking up an activity for genuine public service and connecting with them at a personal level and doing something for branding and publicity. In political circles, the act of doing marathon walks and 'Padayatras' seems to have become a hit formula and some resort to it as the final attempt to strike a chord with the people.

We are already seeing how Rahul Gandhi is walking throughout India to get some mileage for the Congress party. Whether that has happened or not, Rahul got trolled at many instances and it became a difficult task for the congress party to handle. Keeping that aside, yet another young leader is now gearing up for his share of 'Padayatra'.

He is none other than Nara Lokesh and he is going to take off with his walking marathon on January 27th with the name 'Yuvagalam'. The objective is to attract the youth of Andhra Pradesh and lay the foundation for some strong voting towards TDP from this particular vote bank. However, the political experts call this more of a branding exercise than any genuine personal connect activity.

While that is one side, another thing is catching the attention of many. The entire responsibility of planning, strategizing and ensuring everything happens as per plan has been entrusted to MLC Deepak Reddy. He happens to be the son-in-law of senior leader J C Prabhakar Reddy. Now, some are calling it a political strategy from Chandrababu Naidu. They see it as Naidu's ploy to use the Reddy camp to send a subtle message to Jagan that their own community people are supporting Lokesh in his endeavors.

It is also heard that they are gathering some more bigwigs from the Reddy community to offer their support to Lokesh during his Yatra. However, what Naidu or Lokesh fail to see is, Jagan's strength comes not just from the Reddy community but from all other communities as well. The percentage of Reddy vote bank is considerably less when compared to the other vote banks. Moreover, when such Padayatras happen, the people focus more on what Lokesh is trying to communicate and how their manifesto is going to be like rather than who is behind him. That is exactly what creates a sense of willingness to vote when the elections come. For now, it looks like the idea of involving the Reddy camp to boost Lokesh's brand image seems to be not that wise.


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