1950 Nara Chandrababu Naidu was born on 20 April 1950 at Naravaripalle, Tirupati district in present-day Andhra Pradesh in an agricultural family to Nara Kharjura Naidu and his wife Amanamma. He has a younger brother Nara Ramamurthy Naidu and two younger sisters.

Naidu secured a candidacy from the Congress party and became an MLA for the Chandragiri constituency in 1978 at the age of 28. He worked his way to become Minister for Cinematography in T. Anjaiah's cabinet.  After joining the government, he dropped his PhD program.

In 1982, N. T. Rama Rao formed the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and swept the assembly polls held in 1983. Naidu, who was then still in the Congress (I) party, was defeated by a TDP candidate in Chandragiri. Soon after, he joined TDP. Naidu demonstrated his political skills in August 1984, when N. Bhaskara Rao staged a coup against N. T. Rama Rao. Subsequently, Rama Rao was reinstated as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. Impressed with his son-in-law's efforts, Rao made Naidu in-charge of Karshaka Parishad, the farmers' council established by his government. Rao later appointed Naidu as the general secretary of the party and he began playing an important role in the TDP. Naidu did not contest in the 1985 elections, concentrating his efforts on building the party.

Chandrababu Naidu's commitment and hardwork to strengthen the organizational set-up of the party impressed NTR. who himself was a task master. The party chief appointed Naidu as the general secretary of the party in 1986. 

Chandrababu Naidu, always interested in business, founded Heritage Foods in 1992. Started with an initial investment of Rs 80 lakh, Naidu brought in his wife Nara Bhuvaneshwari to lead the dairy company. The turnover of Heritage Foods Limited amounted to over Rs 26 billion at the end of fiscal year 2022.

Barely eight months into governance, the TDP found itself in internal dissension. NTR's second wife Lakshmi Parvathi's increasing interference in the party and the government was resented by a large number of the partymen. Chandrababu Naidu, who had been opposing the wife's role in the party from the beginning, made frantic mediation efforts with the patriarch NTR, but to no avail. Forced by circumstances, Chandrababu led the majority group in the party that elected him as the party leader.

The elections in 1999 proved Chandrababu Naidu's mettle as a long-distance runner in politics. For the for time, TDP was returned to power after NTR's demise. TDP under Naidu also made significant gains in the Parliament seats, making it an important partner in the AB Vajpayee-led BJP government at the Centre.

N. Chandrababu Naidu survived the dastardly attempt by the Naxalites of the People's War (P.W.) to assassinate him. On October 1, 2003, the Naxalites triggered a series of nine powerful Claymore mines, which were reportedly planted over a period of time on the ghat road leading to the Tirumala hills from Tirupati, barely minutes after the Chief Minister's convoy had crossed the Alipiri toll gate downhill at 4-12 p.m. The impact of the blast was so intense that Chandrababu Naidu's bulletproof car was hurled into the air and landed on its side.  A look at the scene of the attempted assassination left no one in doubt that the Chief Minister had a miraculous escape, Frontline magaznie reported. 

Chandrababu Naidu led the TDP to an outright majority in the 2014 elections in the bifurcated Andhra Pradesh. The victory was widely seen as the expression of the people of Andhra Pradesh for an experienced leader to lead the state at a crucial juncture.