Will BJP Dare To Go With TDP?

The closed-door meeting between TDP supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu and Union minister Amit Shah led to speculation that the duo discussed modalities of a likelihood alliance of their parties, ahead of the Assembly elections in the Telugu states.

Keeping Andhra Pradesh aside, there are doubts about how the BJP-TDP alliance would go ahead in Telangana. Have not the BJP leaders at the Centre sensed how sentiment works in Telangana?

In 2018, the TDP went in for a truck with the Congress but this helped the TRS, which at that time was facing some opposition.

TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao managed to convince the electorate that leaders from Andhra Pradesh would invade Telangana and try to exploit their resources and also leave them unemployed by taking away their jobs. This narrative helped the TRS to get voted to power for a second tenure.

He made it clear that the tie-up would defeat the cause of separate Telangana. In fact, the TDP-Congress alliance was most discussed than the TRS government’s development activities or anti-incumbency, during that time.

This helped KCR win the 2018 elections with much higher majority than in 2014 elections. Now, the moot question is will the BJP blindly move ahead with the TDP in Telangana? Naidu can claim to have developed Telangana but will that argument be able to withstand the Telangana sentiment stoked by KCR, every now and then. At the same time, he would also keep reminding the people that Naidu is a big opportunist, who had travelled with the Congress last time and is moving closely with the BJP this time around.

Being aware of this situation, the BJP leaders seem to have got alerted beforehand as Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay said that there was no need to believe in the speculation of an alliance between the BJP and TDP. What is wrong if Naidu meets Amit Shah or JP Nadda, he asked.

Sanjay also tried to picturise the Naidu-Shah meet as an ordinary one by reminding that Mamata Banerjee, Stalin and Nitish Kumar also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah both in the stature of Chief Ministers and Opposition leaders.