Hyderabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday formalised its reunion with Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party (JSP) in Andhra Pradesh after protracted negotiations.
The three parties declared in a joint statement that they will contest the upcoming general elections and the Vidhan Sabha elections together in the state that sends 25 MPs to the Lok Sabha. They had contested the 2014 elections together too, but the TDP had walked out of the alliance in 2018.
The brief statement said that the modalities of seat sharing between the three parties “will be deliberated within a day or two”.
In a post on X Saturday, Naidu wrote: “The alliance between BJP, TDP and JSP isn’t just an alliance but rather a partnership between three stakeholders committed to serving Andhra Pradesh and the country…. I’m pleased to rejoin NDA today.”
The Telugu Desam Party is committed to the development of Andhra Pradesh and the welfare of the Telugu people.
The alliance between BJP, TDP and JSP isn't just an alliance but rather a partnership between three stakeholders committed to serving Andhra Pradesh and the country.… https://t.co/Y7yGUgJKqj pic.twitter.com/Nf6fjhaLfB
— N Chandrababu Naidu (@ncbn) March 9, 2024
However, sources in the BJP and TDP told ThePrint that the workable formula for Lok Sabha is eight seats for the BJP-JSP and remaining 17 for the TDP. The BJP is likely to contest on six seats.
“The BJP succeeded in extracting two more seats over what we offered them,” a senior TDP leader, who was in Delhi along with Naidu, told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
For the assembly, the JSP-BJP combine, say sources, will be given a total of 30 seats, as part of the alliance. The Andhra Pradesh assembly has 175 members.
TDP leaders said that while clarity on which seat will go to which party will come in a couple of days, the important thing is that the alliance has been clinched “to ensure that anti-Jagan vote is not split at any cost”.
The TDP-JSP has already announced candidate names for 99 seats, including five of JSP. In a joint presser last month, Naidu and Pawan had said the JSP will contest in 24 assembly and three Lok Sabha segments.
That leaves six assembly and five Lok Sabha seats to the BJP. According to the sources, JSP might have to sacrifice one of its three seats to the BJP.
Speaking to reporters Saturday, YSRCP minister Ambati Rambabu called the TDP-BJP-JSP alliance “illicit and dishonest” which they will “face alone and overthrow in the polls”.
“While their 2014 formed government was unpopular, the alliance also proved to be futile, parting ways midway spitefully. Naidu had his men pelt Amit Shah with stones when he visited Tirupati. Pawan, too, castigated the Centre, likening their financial support etc to rotten laddus. Now, they have readjusted in order to defeat Jagan,” he said. Ambati’s reference was to the May 2018 incident, when some TDP activists allegedly pelted stones at Shah’s convoy in temple town Tirupati.
Andhra Pradesh, like Odisha, will vote simultaneously for its assembly and Lok Sabha next month.
Also read: How Andhra CM Jagan & rival Naidu are trying to get divinity on their side ahead of assembly polls
Old friends reunite
BJP and TDP have a very old relationship. The TDP joined the NDA in 1996 and the two parties have worked together successfully in Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi governments, said the joint statement.
The TDP-BJP-JSP was the winning combination a decade ago in 2014, when Chandrababu Naidu became the first chief minister of the truncated state following the bifurcation, and supported the Narendra Modi government with 15 TDP Lok Sabha MPs. (JSP did not contest but supported the TDP-BJP combine.)
The BJP itself won two of the four seats it contested out of the 25 Andhra Pradesh segments, in addition to four assembly seats. It also joined Naidu’s government with two ministerial berths, while TDP became part of Modi’s cabinet.
In March 2018, though, the two parties had a falling out, mainly over the issue of special category status to Andhra Pradesh. Naidu later joined the Congress camp and even contested the 2018 Telangana polls in alliance with the party.
In February 2019, Shah in poll rallies in the state, announced that the NDA doors are permanently shut for “opportunist” Naidu.
The TDP’s reunification with the BJP comes after several parleys over the past several months, mediated by JSP chief Pawan Kalyan.
The announcement Saturday follows two rounds of negotiations Naidu and Kalyan have held with BJP chief J.P. Nadda and chief strategist and Union Home Minister Amit Shah since Thursday in New Delhi, where the two regional leaders were camped to finalise a deal.
Where does this leave Jagan?
Naidu managing to clinch the deal with BJP is being seen as a setback for Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy’s Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP). Though not a formal ally, Jagan had been steadfastly supporting Modi over various issues and legislations in Parliament.
The YSRCP leaders expected the BJP — in power at the Centre and in control of various agencies like Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) — to keep the TDP at bay. Given its strong minority vote bank, the ruling party itself showed no interest in an alliance with the BJP.
The TDP and YSRCP leaders ThePrint spoke to agree on the limited electoral appeal of the BJP and Modi in Andhra Pradesh, which has been conventionally disinclined towards communal politics. Though Ayodhya Ram Mandir inauguration has earned praise for Modi among Hindus, showing a socio-cultural impact, it has no electoral influence, party leaders and analysts say.
In the 2019 polls, when the BJP contested alone, drawing a zero in the AP assembly and Lok Sabha, the party could not even poll 1 percent of total votes in the state. That year, the YSRCP had bagged 49.95 percent vote share, TDP 39.17, and JSP around 6 percent.
“But the BJP’s support is crucial because it controls the agencies. So, it is advisable to have them on your side, even at the cost of Muslim vote,” a TDP legislator told ThePrint.
The Muslim voters’ further desertion is a matter of concern for Naidu though.
Muslims constitute over nine percent of Andhra Pradesh’s population and their votes are especially crucial in the Rayalaseema region, which accounts for over 50 MLAs.
The region abutting Karnataka and north Tamil Nadu has a considerable number of the minority population, especially in urban areas like Kurnool, Nandyala, Adoni, Kadapa, Rayachoti, Proddutur. So much so that during the 2014 polls, TDP candidates’ campaign vehicles in Rayalaseema were bereft of Modi image on the banners.
“Now, that TDP has allied with BJP, our Muslim vote share will inevitably go up from 65 percent to 75-80 percent,” a close political aide of Jagan, operating from the CMO in an official position, told ThePrint.
However, a BJP MP hailing from the area expressed confidence that a section of Muslim women is expected to vote for the combine, having benefited from Modi’s welfare schemes like Ujjwala and triple talaq abolition etc.
Even before the BJP deal, Jagan has been appealing to the public to re-elect him based on “99 percent fulfilment” of his welfare promises made during the last polls. The YSRCP chief is telling the public that the polls are “a battle between their son/brother and all other forces coming together to defeat him.”
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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