ANDHRA PRADESH: NAIDU’S DOWNTURN
Despite the defections, the TDP chief is confident the party will bounce back
For Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N. Chandrababu Naidu, it couldn’t get worse. No sooner had he left for Brussels on holiday than four of his MPs in the Rajya Sabha, including trusted lieutenants Y.S. Chowdary and C.M. Ramesh, deserted him for the BJP, reducing the party’s strength in the house to two.
Chowdary and Ramesh, along with Garikapati Mohan Rao and T.G. Venkatesh, all rich businessmen with a net worth of Rs 348.6 crore, met Rajya Sabha chairman and vice-president M. Venkaiah Naidu on June 20 with a letter seeking a merger of the TDP parliamentary party with the BJP. The MPs met the two-thirds criteria necessary to avoid disqualification under the anti-defection law, so the BJP, seeking to increase its strength of 71 members in the 245-seat house, welcomed them with open arms. Adding insult to injury, the defecting MPs let it out to the political grapevine that their jumping ship was at Naidu’s behest.
To the TDP’s credit, the message did not trigger an exodus. The party still has most of its flock together, three MPs in the Lok Sabha, a substantial
number of the 23 MLAs and other influential TDP activists. “The question of them doing it for his (Naidu’s) sake is absolutely false,” says TDP parliamentary party leader Galla Jayadev. Chowdary and Ramesh, leader and deputy leader, respectively, of the party in the Rajya Sabha, owe their rise in politics to Naidu. They were picked for their ability to raise resources for the TDP.
Both are under the scanner of revenue regulators, including the Enforcement Directorate and income tax authorities, and their business entities were raided in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election. Chowdary was MoS for science and technology in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first term till the TDP exited the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
THE DEFECTING MPs LET IT OUT THAT THEIR JUMPING SHIP WAS AT NAIDU’S BEHEST
“This is sheer opportunist politics, succumbing to the BJP’s mind games,” Naidu said in a teleconference with senior TDP leaders, asking them to “stand firm against political attacks”. He is confident about staging a return in 2024, claiming his ‘inexperienced’ rival, the new Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress (YSRC) chief Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, will fail the governance test.
A day after the four MPs crossed over, BJP national general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao extended an open invitation to the TDP and state Congress leaders to join the party. “Jaganmohan helped the BJP by defeating the TDP. Now we will occupy the Opposition space. There will be a marked change in the political landscape of the state in the next six months,” claims Rao.
Jayadev says “the BJP is underestimating the TDP. We had 39.2 per cent vote share to the YSRC’s 49.95 per cent in the recent elections”. Political commentator C. Narasimha Rao too believes the party could bounce back as it has “a loyal rank and file and the support of influential sections, like the middle class and upper middle class”.