The Telugu Desam Party, led by Chandrababu Naidu, might be one of the first allies that Narendra Modi would have won for the BJP after becoming the party’s Prime Ministerial candidate.
Though Naidu has remained steadfastly focused on UPA-bashing and refused to commit to joining the NDA, modalities for a alliance has already been worked out and an announcement will be made soon.
A senior BJP leader as saying: Naidu will share the dais with Modi at a function in Delhi on October 2, for the first time since TDP parted ways with BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2005, added the party leader, who did not wish to be named.
Naidu’s party has been on an offensive against the Congress ever since Telangana was granted statehood late July. The TDP MPs, along with some Congress MPs had also been held responsible for disrupting the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in the Monsoon session of the Parliament. While Meira Kumar suspended the MPs from the session, the Opposition, led by Sushma Swaraj had voiced a strong concern for their demands.
While the TDP had been demanding a ‘United Andhra’ and BJP as a party had always supported the idea of bifurcating Andhra, Swaraj had said repeatedly that the Congress abrupt decision to divide the state had resulted in the protests, hence BJP empathised with TDP. The stage for a collaboration was probably already set right then, which Modi is now using successfully to secure a strong alliance.
In fact, when the Congress, then desperate to pass the Food Bill, had suggested that the TDP MPs be thrown out of the House, Swaraj had registered a strong protest. The BJP had protested even when the TDP MPs were finally suspended from the House.
Swaraj had then argued that three new states were formed in the NDA’s regime but there was no bad blood between the new states and the parent states as the divisions were fair. Given that the BJP can’t possibly change stance on bifurcation itself, the party turned its attention to the process involved in the split of Telangana and the Congress’ motives. Understandably, thus, Modi with his superior UPA-bashing skills finds an empathiser in Naidu.
In an interview with INN, Naidu voices the same concerns as Modi does, curiously enough, almost in similar rhetoric. He says:
The immediate priority of the Telugu Desam Party is to mobilise public opinion against a failed government at the Centre and the party that heads the government. You must have seen a recent article in the New York Times that said the prime minister of the country is being remote-controlled by his party president.
TDP, like West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress, had been in alliance with both the NDA and the UPA in the past. Naidu hints that an alliance with the BJP is a possibility.
With the Congress being hyped to have got the election math right with the Telangana bifurcation, the only way the TDP can maintain its sway in the local politics is by raising a strong anti-Congress chorus. And the same, in half a state, not too unhappy with the bifurcation, will be impossible without the BJP’s push.
The effectiveness of Narendra Modi‘s Congress bashing having been proven already, the TDP’s only choice is to tie up with the BJP at this moment. The BJP on the other hand, as this Outlook survey pointed out, will struggle to achieve a complete majority and will fall short of almost 100 seats.
While 6 seats might not come as a great relief for the party, the BJP will be looking to joining every small ally together to take on the Congress in 2014. The poll math, therefore, makes a BJP-TDP alliance inevitable. It’s only a matter of time before it is made public.
