The missing BJP in NDA’s TDP-JSP joint campaigns raises questions in Andhra Pradesh

Incidentally, this was the first time she appeared in their company after her participation in the NDA rally that Prime Minster Narendra Modi addressed in Chilakaluripet in the erstwhile Guntur district on 21 March.

Later, the BJP in general remained a little aloof. A large section of the TDP workers who opposed the alliance with the BJP too remained very cold towards the saffron party.

Also Read: Spate of protests in Andhra as YSRCP blames TDP for attack on CM Jagan Mohan Reddy

Disputes despite partners in alliance

The workers of the BJP and those of Jana Sena have not come together at the ground level even now. There have been clashes among them over trivial issues like fixing of banners and flexies of one party in the rally of another party despite the fact that they were partners in an alliance.

Even in seat-sharing, embers are still smouldering over the TDP’s generous offer of 21 Assembly seats to the JSP and 10 Assembly seats to the BJP. The TDP workers are unable to come to terms with the allotment of six Lok Sabha seats to the BJP of which the TDP now is taking one back, still leaving five seats for the saffron party.

The TDP allotted two LS seats to the JSP which the Jana Sena workers find it difficult to swallow. They believe that their party is much stronger than the BJP and yet the BJP walked away with a lion’s share.

Though the leaders of the three parties are trying to sort out the issues at their level, it is anybody’s guess to what extent they would be able to assuage the ruffled feelings of the workers of the JSP and the TDP.

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Naidu’s BJP alliance push

Despite the TDP leaders’ dispute, the fact remains that it was Chandrababu Naidu who wanted to have an alliance badly with the BJP though the latter is not a player in AP electoral politics.

The TDP supremo wanted the BJP by its side as he believed it would make the ECI check the “election malpractices” of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. Naidu is understood to have suspected that the YSRCP would be moving money across the constituencies or use force to intimidate the voters and so on.

Naidu had to pay the price to the BJP in the form of generous chunk of the Lok Sabha seats as he did not want to leave anything to chance in his showdown with Jagan Mohan Reddy at the hustings.

He cannot afford losing the election as it would lead to an existential crisis not only for him but for his heir apparent Nara Lokesh as well. It may finally lead to the party’s molecular disintegration.

A TDP leader said: “Naidu should not have gone in for alliance. Where is the need?” He insisted that it was the BJP which invited Naidu into the NDA and not vice-versa. “The TDP workers still feel in their bones that the party leadership had yielded when the BJP’s sought Lok Sabha seats like Shylock demanded his pound of flesh,” he said.

Also Read: NDA candidate for Visakhapatnam, Mathukumilli Sribharat, on YS Jagan and Nara Lokesh

BJP’s strategic reunion with TDP

That the BJP was not very keen on having an alliance with the TDP was clear as day light since the beginning. Chandrababu Naidu, on the other hand, wanted to rub shoulders with Prime Minister by making amends with him for his egregious blunder of breaking away from the NDA in 2018 and calling him names afterwards.

Though the BJP was initially inimical to the alliance overtures of Naidu, it finally began seeing sense in re-admitting the TDP into the NDA as it wanted to broaden the scope by welcoming back the estranged partners. The BJP seemed to have hoped that this way it would be able to sink roots in the South.

The BJP may not get anything extra being with the TDP since the party would support the BJP at the national level, with or without alliance.

This is because of the Naidu wants to be in the good books of the BJP to exert a pressure on the YSRCP that it cannot play any slimy games against him as it has a covert understanding with the saffron party.

Though the YSRCP is in cahoots with the BJP, it does not wear its relationship on its sleeve. This is because Jagan Mohan Reddy also needs Narendra Modi as much as Chandrababu Naidu as the CBI’s disproportionate assets case against him is still hanging fire.

Another advantage is that he would have some kind of a check on Chandrababu Naidu.

Against this backdrop, the BJP let the TDP into the NDA but the saffron party was not gung-ho about the alliance since the beginning. This is because the TDP chief’s diatribe in 2018 after he stepped out of NDA is understood to be rankling Narendra Modi.

Even at the Chilakaluripet rally on 21 March, Narendra Modi was not effusive towards the TDP. He carefully avoided targeting Jagan Mohan Reddy though the very purpose of the meeting was to tear the chief minister to shreds.

This is probably Jagan Mohan Reddy remained more loyal to Modi than Naidu who with his flip-flop policy on special category status turned against him ahead of last general elections.

The BJP leaders too might have understood the meaning of the unspoken words of Narendra Modi, and ever since, have been missing with the TDP leaders the way oil mixes with water.

This apart, though Naidu needs Modi, he does not appear to be liking the BJP leaders around him in the public as he is nervous over losing the minority votes.

Already a major portion of the minority vote bank has shifted to YSRCP and this was the reason why the YSRCP chief also does not want an overt understanding with the BJP.

To break this understanding, Chandrababu Naidu had risked an overt alliance but as the polls draw closer, he seems to be afraid of the whatever Muslim miniorities left with him might see the red light and may move towards YSRCP.

Also Read: ‘Jagan Mohan Reddy looting Andhra Pradesh’: Chandrababu Naidu

BJP’s obvious disinterest

That the BJP cadres are not swayed by the presence of D Purandeswari though she is BJP state president is obvious. For one thing, she is not a true-blue BJP leader.

She made a lateral entry into the party after the Congress died a natural death in AP following the bifurcation of the state in 2014. As general elections drew closer now, Purandeswari has turned against Jagan Mohan Reddy more than the BJP did, and it is assumed that it was only to help Chandrababu Naidu win the election.

The BJP leaders in private talk disapprove of her working more for Naidu than for the BJP and trying to promote her caste people in the party.

Political analyst Telakapalli Ravi says that the BJP in power for 10 years had not done anything for the state and yet without explaining its silence for 10 years, it was now seeking votes for the NDA alliance.

The BJP being in power at the centre should have shown at least some kind of road map as to how it would develop the state.

For that matter, even Pawan Kalyan, who campaigned against the BJP before 2019 elections, even calling the special package a rotten laddu that had been handed over to the people without bothering about special category status, is not justifying how the BJP with whom he has aligned now would help the Andhra Pradesh develop.

He also finds it odd that the BJP is not showing much interest in taking part in the joint campaign.

“BJP’s participation looks half-hearted. The BJP is hardly contesting 10 Assembly seats in the state. Where have all the other leaders gone? They are not seen in the campaign being conducted by the TDP and the JSP. This gives rise to a feeling that the TDP does not want the BJP around when campaigning, for fear of losing minority votes,” says Ravi.

There are other voices who think that the alliance between TDP, Jana Sena and BJP would end up helping the YSRC, though it looks a little far-fetched. The workers of the three parties at ground level are not showing much interest in working for the TDP.

“Transfer of votes, the crucial aspect of any alliance might not happen with these parties. For one thing, the BJP has no votes in the state and so the question of shifting of votes to JSP or the TDP does not arise. The TDP voters may not vote for JSP as they feel that by stature Pawan Kalyan is diminutive before Naidu,” said a senior journalist in Viayawada.

“They also may not vote for the JSP becasuse Pawan Kalyan represents a caste which has an age-old rivalry with the Kammas who define the TDP. Similarly, Pawan Kalyan’s supporters, who are mostly Kapus, may not be too excited to vote for the TDP for the same reason. All in all, the reluctant voters in the three parties might cast their votes in favour of YSRC though they may not like doing so,” he added.

Another senior journalist in Hyderabad D Ratna Kumar says that transfer of votes may still happen despite hitches. This is because the party workers and the sympathisers of a party may not go against the party diktat that they should vote in favour of alliance partners in seats where it is not in contest.

The Kapu-Kamma conflict has lost its edge over the years and a lot of water has flowed in the Krishna River since December 26, 1988 when Kapu leader and the then Congress legislator Vangaveei Mohan Ranga was hacked to death while he was fasting in front of his house on Bandar Road in Vijayawada seeking protection as he feared threat to his life from the then ruling Telugu Desam Party.

He said that the situation has changed and Kapus and Kammas might vote interchangeably.

“Pawan Kalyan’s voters could still vote for the TDP and vice-versa. Anyway, there is one month time still left for the elections and by then one could see active participation of the BJP in the joint rallies of the three parties,” he added.