Nara Chandrababu Naidu (born 1950), widely known as CBN, is an Indian politician currently serving as the 13th Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and the national president of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
Born into a Telugu agrarian family in Naravaripalle, Tirupati district, in present-day Andhra Pradesh, he earned a master's degree in economics from Sri Venkateswara University. Although he began work on a Ph.D., he did not complete it.
He became the youngest MLA at 28 and a minister at 30 in Andhra Pradesh. From 1975 to 1983, he was affiliated with the Indian National Congress (Indira).
In 1981, he married Bhuvaneswari, the second daughter of N. T. Rama Rao. He later joined TDP, founded by his father-in-law N. T. Rama Rao, and served as a TDP MLA from 1989 to 1995.
He started Heritage Foods, a dairy company, in 1992 and passed its leadership to Bhuvaneswari in 1994. That same year, the company went public with an IPO oversubscribed 54 times, raising ₹6.5 crore. From a market capitalisation of ₹25 crore in 1995, Heritage Foods soared to ₹6,755 crore by June 2024. The Nara family holds 41.3% of the shares.
Chandrababu Naidu first became Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in 1995 at the age of 45. He served as CM of combined Andhra Pradesh for nine years, the longest tenure in the state's history.
He quickly made a mark in governance. He integrated technology into various aspects of administration, promoted IT in the late ’90s, and attracted global giants like Microsoft, Oracle, and Google to Hyderabad. This led to the city being dubbed Cyberabad, a name he coined for its global promotion. His policies brought modernization and significant investments, particularly in Hyderabad, where he oversaw the establishment of HITEC City, Genome Valley, HITEX Exhibition, and the Financial District. He also launched the Hyderabad Multi-Modal Transport System (MMTS) to enhance urban mobility. Furthermore, he initiated major infrastructure projects like the Hyderabad Outer Ring Road and laid the foundation for the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.
From 1996 onwards, he became involved in national politics, initially as the convener of the United Front. Following the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, in which TDP won 29 seats, he supported the BJP-led NDA, solidifying his national prominence.
During his second term as Chief Minister in 2003, he survived a land mine blast by the People's War Group (PWG) near the Alipiri tollgate in Tirupati.
Currently in his fourth term as CM, Naidu holds the record as the longest-serving Chief Minister in Telugu state history. After Andhra Pradesh's bifurcation in 2014, he became the first Chief Minister of the newly formed state and is now in his second term.
In 2018, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) reported that Naidu was the richest Chief Minister in India, with assets totaling ₹177 crore. He continues to be richest among all chief ministers in the country with ₹931 crore worth of assets. He has vitiligo, an autoimmune condition that causes white patches on the skin.