Tirupati, April 25: The brothers have squabbled and parted ways and their native village is still reeling from the after-effects.

Naravaripally, home to chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu, is undecided whom to vote — the elder brother’s party or the younger Ramamurthy Naidu, an Independent.

“If we vote for the chinnayana (younger brother), we lose the goodwill of the peddayana (elder brother). But if we don’t vote for him, we earn the wrath of the chinnayana,” says the brothers’ maternal uncle, P. Changalvaraya Naidu.

About 30 km from the temple town of Tirupati, Naravaripally has been orphaned since the two brothers went public with their political spat.

“We do not matter to him at all. All he bothers about is his voters at Kuppam (the chief minister’s seat over 100 km from the village),” the uncle says.

The village has a “marriage hall, veterinary hospital, 20-bed government hospital, high school and a fair-price shop”, says another relative, . Nagraja Naidu, but it had expected more from the son of the soil.

“We hoped he would develop our picturesque village into a major educational centre by establishing an engineering and medical institute as a satellite to the Tirupati institutions,” says . Venkatnarayan Naidu, a clan member.

“The only remnant of the family is a black granite samadhi to his father, Khurja Naidu. After that, Chandrababu Naidu has hardly visited the village,” says another. “He even built a new house for his mother at Tirupati after differences with Ramamurthy grew.”

Naravaripally — a village with about 1,000 voters of which around 700 are Nara clan members, says Nagraja Naidu — had voted dividedly in 1999, with 300 votes going to the Congress. The party’s Galla Aruna Kumari went on to win the Assembly polls from Chandragiri, of which the village is a part.

She has, however, been no better than the brothers in tending to her constituency. “She never comes here as she hates the (Nara) family,” says Changalvaraya Naidu.

No wonder Ramamurthy fancies his chance from Chandragiri this time. “Both the Congress and the TDP are anti-people. Only committed politicians like me can do something for the people,” he says at Panapaka village, 20 km from Naravaripally.

Naidu junior, who won the seat in 1994 and lost in 1999, hopes to win with a 15,000 margin despite the rumoured Congress wave in Rayalaseema.

“About a third (of the local electorate) are Naidus and the rest are weaker sections whom I have served all these years. I hope to win without any party badge,” Ramamurthy says.

Wave or no, Ramamurthy’s entry into the fray appears to have converted the contest into a straight fight between the “Congress and the Independent candidate”. And Chandragiri is reputed for never giving its sitting MLA a second term.