Hyderabad: Union Home Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief strategist Amit Shah sees ex-Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s arrest by state Crime Investigation Department (CID) as an attempt by the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government in Andhra Pradesh to “frame the BJP”, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader and Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh claimed Thursday, a day after meeting Shah in New Delhi.
The (TDP) general secretary said, Shah enquired about his father’s “condition in jail, cases registered and status of hearing in the courts”.
The meeting, in presence of Daggubati Purandeswari and Kishan Reddy, the BJP’s Andhra Pradesh and Telangana unit chiefs, triggered a buzz in the political circles. Purandeswari is also Lokesh’s aunt.
The BJP has so far remained non-committal about re-joining hands with the TDP for an alliance. Naidu’s TDP had in 2018 snapped ties with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) citing broken promises to the bifurcated state. Telangana was carved out of the Andhra in 2014.
The BJP central leadership remained silent on Naidu’s arrest last month in connection with the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation.
“When Shah enquired, I told him the false cases are nothing but political vendetta. I told him that YSRCP [the Jagan Reddy-led YSR Congress Party] MPs, MLAs are claiming that the BJP is behind all this. That BJP’s silence gave scope for such allegations. The HM [Home Minister] replied saying that Jagan Mohan Reddy is trying to frame the BJP,” Lokesh told the media.
The Lokesh-Shah meeting came at a time when TDP has been trying to get back into the NDA fold. However, Lokesh told ThePrint that “there was no political discussion at all” in Wednesday’s meeting.
In a post on social media platform X [previously Twitter] Wednesday night, following the 15-minute audience with Shah at his residence in New Delhi, Lokesh said he “apprised” the minister about the “YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) regime’s revenge and blatant misuse of state machinery”.
“The appalling condition in which Naidu has been lodged in prison… his life is under threat,” Lokesh added in his post.
A section of TDP leaders has unofficially stated that “BJP understanding with YSRCP encouraged Naidu’s arrest” — a claim that is said to be troubling the BJP’s Andhra unit. Telangana Congress leaders like Madhu Yaskhi have also alleged that the BJP was behind Naidu’s arrest.
In her post on X, Purandeswari said that Wednesday’s meeting was only meant to dispel the rumours and allegations that the Narendra Modi-led central government was behind or backing the arrest of Naidu.
“Lokesh elaborately explained to Amit Shahji about the vindictiveness of the state government and leaders at the helm of affairs. Now those who blame the Centre need to reply as to why Amit Shahji would give an appointment to Lokesh if the BJP was behind the arrest,” Purandeswari wrote on X, posting a picture from the meeting.
In the aftermath of the action against Naidu, while BJP’s national leaders kept silent, Purandeswari had condemned her brother-in-law’s arrest as “unjustified, sans a proper notice, without name mentioned in the FIR, without seeking an explanation and bypassing procedures”.
After that though, BJP leaders were learnt to have been instructed by the high command not to speak on the issue.
According to YSRCP minister Ambati Rambabu, the Lokesh-Shah meeting had been fixed, “though a month late”, at the insistence of Purandeswari.
“I think the meeting was not about an alliance but to put forth a proposal to merge the TDP with the BJP (to bring Naidu out of jail),” Ambati told ThePrint.
TDP leaders refused to comment on the political importance of the meeting, at a time when the party is seen as vying to get back into the NDA fold.
“As a son pained by his father’s continuing custody, over 33 days now, Lokesh went to meet the home minister to explain the false cases and YSRCP’s political vendetta. No political inferences should be drawn here,” Panchumarthi Anuradha, a senior TDP leader, told ThePrint.
Speaking about the Lokesh-Shah meeting, Lanka Dinakar, BJP spokesperson, asserted that it was “not a family but a political meeting to give clarity that the BJP has nothing to do with Naidu’s arrest”.
Also Read: Chandrababu’s arrest unfair, Modi did same with same firms in Gujarat, says TDP chief’s son Lokesh
Jagan says ‘central agencies unravelled Naidu’s graft’
On Monday, chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy said that Naidu’s scams and corruption had been unravelled by the central probe agencies.
In a meeting of his partymen in Vijayawada Monday, Jagan said that Naidu would be freed from jail if the arrest was YSRCP’s mere political vengeance.
“His (Naidu’s) former ally BJP is at the Centre, his foster son Pawan Kalyan is still an NDA ally. His close family member (Purandeswari) is the chief of Andhra Pradesh BJP, which is anyway filled with former TDP leaders,” Jagan said, adding that “he holds no grudge against Naidu”.
Naidu has been lodged in the Rajahmundry central jail for over a month now, while the CID has named him as accused in the alleged Amaravati Inner Ring Road scam and other cases too.
Lokesh, who was a minister in the Naidu government (2014 to 2019), is also an accused in connection with alleged irregularities in the alignment of the road. He was grilled by the CID for two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, after which he left for New Delhi to meet Shah.
On talks of an alliance with the TDP, the Andhra BJP has maintained that any such call will be taken by the central leadership.
NDA partner and Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan last month declared a pre-poll alliance with the TDP, in a unilateral decision that was seen as an attempt to exert pressure on the BJP for an alliance too.
In his party meetings and public utterances since then, the JSP chief has been urging the BJP to rejoin hands with the TDP.
The JSP-TDP-BJP combine had routed the YSRCP in 2014. However, in 2019, after the three parties had split ways, Jagan swept the Andhra Pradesh elections.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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