ANALYSIS Telugu Desam Party supremo Chandrababu Naidu has been on the fringes of power for a long time. Being a seasoned campaigner, he knows which way the wind is blowing. Imagining the state of Andhra Pradesh after its bifurcation, he also knows that it can be dicey without the support of one of the big alliances. Hence, it is no surprise that he has decided to go with the biggest magnet in the field, despite the objections from lower rung leaders and party workers.
Since Andhra has sizeable minority voters, the workers were naturally worried. It seems that the Shahi Imam’s call for Muslims to vote for Congress made it clear to Naidu that he was not getting minority votes in any case and so he took the plunge. The BJP leadership in the state was also not much inclined to go with TDP, but the larger poll arithmetic prevailed in the end.
With the latest opinion polls giving TDP between 13 to 19 seats, its inclusion in the NDA radically alters the scenario. Now, the NDA is poised to garner 259 seats with TDP as ally, just 13 short of the magic 272. This will ease a lot of tensions in the alliance, as there will be many fence sitters who will be drawn towards the alliance that will be poised to form the government.
This time, the political scenario in Andhra is so emotionally charged that and loyalties are so divided that no one will like to stick out his neck and make a prediction. Despite Telengana and Seemandhara being one as of now, the voting will be markedly biased as they are to be two separate states from June this year.
People from Telegana regions will vote for parties they think supported separation while those in Seemandhara will vote for parties that resisted the move. Since BJP and Congress both supported bifurcation, they can have hopes in Telengana but fear a back lash in Seemandhara. As TDP is strong in Seemandhara, by aligning with it, BJP can neutralize the back lash to some extent.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, TDP fought as part of the Third Front and won 6 seats. BJP had TRS as its NDA ally. While TRS won 2 seats, BJP drew a blank. The Congress had won 33 seats.
Although the Congress vote share dropped from 41.6 percent in 2004 to 39 percent in 2009, it still gained 4 seats, whereas TDP’s vote share dropped from 33.1 to 24.9 percent and it lost 6 seats. The spoiler was megastar Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam party which got 15.7 percent of popular votes without winning a single seat. The Congress has done well to get Chiranjeevi to merge his party with it. But in the charged atmosphere prevailing in Andhra now, that will not be of much help. Otherwise, both together had accounted for nearly 55 percent of the votes in 2009 and could have swept the polls this time.
In the assembly elections that were held concurrently with the Lok Sabha elections in 2009, the picture was not much different.
In the assembly elections, the Congress vote share dropped just 2 percent but it still lost 29 seats. TDP lost 9.47 percent votes but managed to gain 45 seats. First timer PRAP of Chiranjeevi got 16.32 percent votes but won only 18 seats. It seems that if PRAP had not divided the opposition votes, the TDP might have turned the tables on the Congress.
Hence, it was seen in both the elections that TDP was the next best performer after the Congress. The Congress this time has splintered into many smaller parties, with each having influence in certain areas. Hence, its votes are going to be severally divided. As it is there is a strong anti incumbency and hate wave going against it in Seemandhara for bifurcating the state. It can only hope to win a few seats in the Telengana region.
The BJP on the other hand has always been an also ran in the state. Its voting percentage has been around 3 and it got just 2 seats in the assembly elections. Hence, it needed a state level partner to get a foothold in the state and brighten its chances on the all India level. Who better than TDP for this?
The BJP on its own might not open its account in the state. But the 13 to 19 seats TDP is expected to win will take the NDA much nearer to the half way mark. This is why the party wooed and ultimately succeeded in bringing him back to the fold after ten years.
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