Edited by Deepali Verma
Bharatiya politician Nara Chandrababu Naidu, president of Telugu Desam Party (TDP), recently met Home Minister Amit Shah and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda late at night.
After the meeting, there are speculations that the political parties may join hands in Andhra Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha as well as the Assembly polls to be held simultaneously in the Southern state.
As per news reports, Naidu met Shah at the home minister’s residence, with sources saying that Nadda was present in the meeting as well. BJP believes that an alliance with Naidu will help the NDA perform better in the state.
Sources say that Naidu is keen on joining forces with the BJP party and if so happens, then it will be a major boost for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in Andhra Pradesh and the following general elections.
This takes place right after Janata Dal (United) president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar joined NDA last month, snapping ties with the opposition.
Lok Sabha Polls 2024
In the Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently asserted that his party will get 370 seats and the NDA will cross 400 in the polls to the 543-member House.
In conversation about TDP, a senior BJP leader informed that his party is open to an alliance but it mainly depends on how many seats the TDP, which is the main opposition party in the state, agrees to give it, specifically for the Lok Sabha polls.
As an alliance, both had fought the 2014 Lok Sabha polls together when Telangana was yet to be formally separated from Andhra Pradesh. The BJP contested for three seats and won all of them out of the 42 seats in the united state.
Post Telangana’s creation, Andhra Pradesh has a total of 25 seats and the BJP is looking to contest on anywhere between six to eight seats, revealed the sources.
The TDP had walked out of the NDA in 2018 but suffered majorly in the 2019 polls when it managed to win only three Lok Sabha seats and lost power in the state to the YSR Congress.
Rumours of RLD joining NDA
Further, there are speculations that Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary is joining hands with the BJP. However, there is no confirmation yet.
The Samajwadi Party (SP), an alliance partner of the RLD, is not happy with the rumours.
The announcement of RLD and the SP’s alliance for the Lok Sabha polls took place on January 19 with the former stating that the latter will figure seven seats in western Uttar Pradesh for its nominees.
They had contested the 2022 assembly elections in alliance as well where SP had won 111 seats whereas the RLD bagged eight seats. In the Lok Sabha polls of 2019, the RLD was part of the SP-BSP alliance.
