NAIDU PLANS 1996 REPEAT, WITH DEVE GOWDA AS PM
The Andhra CM intends to install a government which is completely amenable to the demands made by regional leaders, say political observers.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N. Chandrababu Naidu wants to repeat a 1996 United Front (UF) type experiment post the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, with H.D. Deve Gowda as Prime Minister, in case the Bharatiya Janata Party falls short of the halfway mark of 272 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha and also fails to find allies to take it to the magic number. By this, Naidu not only hopes to prevent Prime Minister Narendra Modi from returning to power, but also intends to install a government which is completely amenable to the demands made by the regional leaders, say political observers. Moreover, thus he too can preside over the coalition just the way he did as UF convener in 1996.
Naidu was in Bengaluru to attend the swearing-in of H.D. Kumaraswamy as the Chief Minister of Karnataka. There, he held one-on-one meetings with his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav. After his return from Bengaluru, Naidu has been talking of how he played a key role in installing the United Front government at the Centre in 1996, when Congress failed to achieve a simple majority in the Lok Sabha and how he, along with Left veterans Harkishan Singh Surjeet and A.B. Bardhan, had selected Deve Gowda as Prime Minister, with the backing of the Congress, which was then led by Sitaram Kesri.
“We did not allow him (Gowda) to complete his full term of five years, because of the Congress’ decision to withdraw support. Now the Congress can compensate for its misdeed by allowing him to complete the remaining period of the term,” Naidu is believed to have said, according to sources.
Naidu wants to cobble together a coalition of regional parties and take the help of the Congress to form government at the Centre. Though the Congress may be the single largest Opposi-