Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu was flooded with congratulatory messages when news trickled that he was the vice-presidential candidate of the National Democratic Alliance. Naidu has spent over four decades in politics, starting as a legislator in Andhra Pradesh in the late 1970s. He has friends cutting across party lines and some of the first ones from Opposition parties to send their congratulatory messages were Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and Communist Party of India (Marxist) chief Sitaram Yechury. The CPI (M) chief also hails from Andhra Pradesh, and despite their ideological differences,