A final confirmation on the alliance and seat-sharing formula is likely after the conclusion of the Budget session on 9 February.
Former CM Chandrababu Naidu with PM Narendra Modi. (Supplied)
Much water has flowed down the Prakasam Barrage since TDP’s national president N Chandrababu Naidu — his voice choking with mixed emotions — told party workers that the 2024 elections would be the last in his political career.
The simultaneous elections to the state Assembly and the Lok Sabha, expected to be held in April-May, hold much importance to the TDP and Naidu, who even had to spend a brief time in jail ever since his Kurnool address in 2022.
Naidu has been looking for an honourable electoral performance worth reminiscing about in the future.
His visit to New Delhi on Wednesday, 7 February, and the subsequent meetings with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president JP Nadda, further rekindled an alliance with the saffron party to take on the might of the ruling YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh.
The BJP seemed to have taken a lenient approach towards the 73-year-old TDP chief, diluting the stiff opposition from a section of party leaders to forging a tie-up with the yellow party in the Telugu state.
So far, Jana Sena Party (JSP) chief Pawan Kalyan, a BJP ally, has been pushing for a tripartite alliance in Andhra Pradesh, and most of his moves have hit a dead end.
Actor-politician Kalyan, however, did not lose heart. He was the first non-TDP leader to decry Naidu’s 9 September, 2023, arrest in the alleged ₹371-crore skill development corporation scam. The JSP leader might have expected his party ally, the BJP, to follow suit. It did not happen.
The BJP, meanwhile, had been toying with the idea of striking an alliance with TDP. On 3 January, it sought the opinion of its state unit regarding a possible tie-up.
The outcome was not in favour of the TDP, with most district unit presidents opposing an alliance, expressing a trust deficit since Naidu had twice snapped ties with the BJP. Some even expressed reservations over working for TDP candidates.
Senior state leaders, however, expressed a different opinion in the two-day meeting. With BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh in attendance, senior leaders — from Rajya Sabha members to former chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy — favoured an alliance with the TDP.
Senior BJP leaders did not want to alienate themselves since the rivalry predominantly was between Naidu’s party and the YSRCP in Andhra’s bipolar political landscape.
Even as the backstage discussions were going on, neither the BJP nor the TDP called for an alliance, but Kalyan kept pushing for it. The TDP, all the while, kept an equidistance from the Congress and the BJP.
The BJP further opened up for talks with the TDP after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after initial reluctance, accepted Kalyan’s alliance proposition, subject to further discussions.
The talk took place on Wednesday. A final confirmation on the alliance and seat-sharing formula would possibly be known after the conclusion of the Budget session on Friday, 9 February.
If Naidu decides to take the TDP to the NDA camp, he would be the third prominent leader after HD Deve Gowda and Nitish Kumar to join hands with the BJP before the Lok Sabha polls.
The 2024 elections have become a do-or-die affair for the TDP.
Kalyan, who launched the JSP in 2014, initially extended support and campaigned for both the TDP and BJP. The TDP and BJP formed the government, winning 106 out of 175 seats.
However, the relationship was short-lived. The JSP left the NDA in 2016 after the TDP accepted a special package the BJP had offered, instead of the special status for Andhra Pradesh. The TDP, too, left the alliance in 2018, a few months before the elections, and took a U-turn on the special package.
The TDP and the BJP contested individually, while Kalyan joined hands with the Left parties. The YSRCP won the polls hands down.
YS Jagan Mohan Reddy assumed power winning 151 out of the 175 Assembly seats, and 22 Parliament seats out of 25. With the 2024 elections closing in, Kalyan has been seeking a consolidation of opposition votes against the YSRCP.
The JSP rejoined the NDA in 2020. However, Kalyan moved closer to the TDP after his detention at Visakhapatnam’s Novotel in October 2022. He was placed under detention for 10 hours after he attempted to visit Rushikonda, where the Chief Minister’s Office was allegedly being illegally constructed.
Naidu later met Kalyan in Vijayawada after the latter’s detention in Visakhapatnam. The meeting laid the foundation for a political realignment and the possible reunion of the three parties.
Though Naidu has been reiterating that his actions were to save democracy from Jagan, political equations seemed to have played a role as well.
Senior editor and political analyst Telakapalli Ravi said the main reason for the TDP joining the NDA was for the Union government’s support since Naidu and several other TDP leaders have been embroiled in legal cases.
“Furthermore, the support of the BJP to TDP-JSP is necessary since Jagan’s YSRCP is strong in the state,” he told South First.
Incidentally, Naidu had never made a public call for an alliance with the BJP, but has been slowly moving towards the saffron party and even visited Delhi twice after his arrest. Naidu’s son and TDP national general secretary, Nara Lokesh, met Amit Shah while Naidu was in jail.
Ravi said Naidu knew that joining or leaving the BJP alliance would be harder since Modi has become stronger than he was during his first stint as the prime minister.
The BJP, with its mostly religious ideology, alienated the minorities in Andhra Pradesh, who backed the YSRCP.
According to sources, the TDP’s internal reports suggested that it might lose around eight Assembly seats, especially in the Rayalaseema region with a predominantly Muslim population.
“It is noteworthy that the consolidation won’t be one-sided. While the anti-opposition votes would go for the alliance, the anti-BJP sentiment, especially among minorities and those who believe that BJP hasn’t helped the state post-bifurcation, would favour the YSRCP,” Ravi said.
Additionally, Naidu does not have many options left. It is worth noting that after the TDP’s departure from the NDA, Naidu joined forces with the Congress for the 2018 Telangana assembly elections but lost to the KCR-led TRS (now the BRS).
Though he later distanced himself from the Congress, one of his former lieutenants, A Revanth Reddy, led the grand old party to victory with over 64 seats and is now the chief minister of Telangana. But, the grand old party has minimal stakes in Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation.
Sources indicated that Naidu agreed to the pact with the BJP to ensure that the alliance with Kalyan remained intact. The JSP garnered around six percent of the vote share in the 2019 elections and has been enjoying the confidence of the Kapu community in coastal districts.
“So, the alliance with the BJP could be seen as one arising out of compulsion rather than a comfortable pact,” Ravi added.
The BJP won only four out of the 13 seats it contested in 2014, with a vote share of around two-and-a-half percent.
However, after the 2014 elections, the BJP could not win any seats. Ravi said the BJP’s template, successful elsewhere in the country, did not work in Andhra Pradesh, especially since it did not fulfil the 2014 AP reorganisation promises.
The BJP performed even worse in the 2019 elections. The party was defeated in all the 173 seats it contested but won 0.9 vote share, which was less than NOTA’s share.
However several prominent politicians and businessmen joined the BJP after the TDP’s loss in 2019.
The four Rajya Sabha MPs who joined the BJP included YS Chowdary, being investigated by the CBI in a bank fraud case. CM Ramesh and TG Venkatesh had their business premises and residences raided by the I-T Department. Garikapati Mohan Rao was another politician who joined the BJP from the TDP.
Still, the BJP has been lacking a prominent face in the state. The BJP tried to enhance its presence with caste equations. It promoted Kanna Lakshmi Narayana and Somu Veerraju from the Kapu community, comprising around 20 percent of the state’s population.
Ravi said that the move did not reap dividends since the community was already aligned with the JSP.
The BJP changed its strategy and appointed Daggubati Purandeswari, daughter of former chief minister Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao and sister-in-law of Naidu as the party’s chief in the state.
Naidu and Purandeswari belong to the same upper-caste “Kamma” community and have been rivals since Naidu took the TDP party helm after dethroning NTR. Meanwhile, the BJP kept the Kapus in good humour through actors Chiranjeevi and Kalyan.
Chiranjeevi, a leading Telugu actor, had merged his Praja Rajyam with the Congress in 2011. He was later nominated as the minister for tourism.
After the Congress lost the 2014 elections to the BJP at the Centre, and the regional parties ruling the Telugu states — the BRS in Telangana and TDP in Andhra — Chiranjeevi announced his return to the Telugu film industry.
Though inactive in politics, Chiranjeevi was invited to the unveiling of the statue of freedom fighter Alluri Sitarama Raju in Bhimavaram in June 2022. He was an invitee to the consecration of the Ram Lalla idol in Ayodhya and also honoured with the Padmavibhushan.
Meanwhile, the BJP has not received any tangible benefits from Purandeswari. “She could not even claim NTR’s legacy as Naidu did,” Ravi said.
Incidentally, besides Kalyan, Purandeswari, too, condemned Naidu’s arrest but did not support the TDP’s call for protest.
Ravi further said that though the BJP might join hands with the TDP, it would possibly maintain the status quo in its relation with the YSRCP.
But the question remains: How much will such a combine gain? Only time could tell.
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