After nearly two months of speculation in the media, the Telugu Desam Party and Bharatiya Janata Party finally announced an election alliance on Sunday. This marks the TDP’s return to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance after a decade. The TDA had joined the NDA in 1999 but parted ways with it after the alliance lost the 2004 elections. This time, however, the power equations between the BJP and the TDP are vastly different, as are the realities of Andhra Pradesh politics.
“The BJP drove a hard bargain and was aware that we were desperate to cement the alliance,” said a senior TDP Member of parliament on condition of anonymity. The sheer number of seats the TDP conceded to BJP candidates reflects this desperation.
In 1999, the BJP was allotted just eight of united Andhra Pradesh’s 42 Lok Sabha seats and 24 of its 294 assembly constituencies. With the bifurcation of AP, the BJP will contest a total of 13 parliamentary seats in the region: eight in Telangana and five in Seemandhra. The increased allocation of seats for the BJP reflects a weakening of the TDP and an enormous change in the region’s political dynamics.
Since 1983, when legendary actor-turned-politician NT Rama Rao launched the TDP and defeated the Congress in state elections, Telugu politics has been a two-way battle between these two parties. However, the division of Andhra Pradesh has altered the situation completely.
The BJP has long had only a marginal presence in the region. It polled less than 5% of the votes in Andhra Pradesh in the 2009 national elections, but decided to support the creation of Telengana. This was consistent with its position of supporting smaller states. In fact, the first hints of an alliance between the TDP and BJP emerged when the bill to bifurcate AP was introduced in parliament in February.
The TDP had initially taken a position in favour of bifurcation but later backtracked. Its core vote base comes from the numerically powerful Khamma caste in coastal Andhra, and the party belatedly feared a backlash if it supported Telengana. This is when TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu tried to convince BJP to stall the bifurcation. But his request was refused. In fact, TDP leaders had openly accused the BJP of siding with the Congress in parliament. The result of the TDP’s flip-flop was that it had lost support in Telengana.
As a consequence, the real electoral battle in Telengana will be between the Congress and Telengana Rashtriya Samiti, the party that led the movement for separation. With the TDP in disarray, BJP has been allotted eight of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana and 47 of the 119 assembly seats. The large number of assembly seats the TDP has given away to the BJP is an indication that it has lost all hope of coming to power on its own in the new state of Telengana.
The BJP’s long-term objective is to take advantage of the situation and build its presence in the new state, just like it did in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand.
It is in Seemandhra that Naidu wants to win power. The BJP will contest in only five of the 25 Lok Sabha and 15 of the 175 assembly seats here. The clear aim is to defeat YS Jaganmohan Reddy, son of late Congress Chief Minister YS Rajashekar Reddy.
Jagan quit the Congress when it refused to make him chief minister after his father’s death in a helicopter crash in 2009. Since 2011, when he officially launched the YSR Congress, his influence has been growing. He has virtually replaced the Congress in this region and turned the election into a battle between his party and the TDP.
Naidu hopes the marginal votes that the BJP will pick up, coupled with a possible Modi wave, will give the TDP an edge. In many ways, the alliance with the BJP is a gamble for Naidu. “We will justify the alliance by projecting Modi as a leader who will do justice to Seemandhra,” said Abheeshta Seethapally, a TDP backroom manager with Naidu’s son, Nara Lokesh.
Will the gamble pay off?
In his public speeches Modi has often spoken of “justice for both sides” of the call for bifurcation and had treaded cautiously in the days leading to the passage of the bill to split Andhra Pradesh. However, it remains to be seen what impact Modi will have on an electorate that has never responded to the BJP.
At the end of the day, the BJP has nothing to lose on either side of a divided Andhra Pradesh. Whatever seats it gets here is a bonus as it won none in the previous two elections. The alliance with the TDP has no ideological basis, and whether it lasts after the elections will depend purely on the numbers of seats each side wins. It is the TDP that has enormous stakes in this alliance.
Ultimately, Chandrababu Naidu is nowhere near as strong as he was in 1999. In this second innings of his party’s association with the NDA, the power equations are firmly in the BJP’s favour – at least till the results are announced.
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“The BJP drove a hard bargain and was aware that we were desperate to cement the alliance,” said a senior TDP Member of parliament on condition of anonymity. The sheer number of seats the TDP conceded to BJP candidates reflects this desperation.
In 1999, the BJP was allotted just eight of united Andhra Pradesh’s 42 Lok Sabha seats and 24 of its 294 assembly constituencies. With the bifurcation of AP, the BJP will contest a total of 13 parliamentary seats in the region: eight in Telangana and five in Seemandhra. The increased allocation of seats for the BJP reflects a weakening of the TDP and an enormous change in the region’s political dynamics.
Since 1983, when legendary actor-turned-politician NT Rama Rao launched the TDP and defeated the Congress in state elections, Telugu politics has been a two-way battle between these two parties. However, the division of Andhra Pradesh has altered the situation completely.
The BJP has long had only a marginal presence in the region. It polled less than 5% of the votes in Andhra Pradesh in the 2009 national elections, but decided to support the creation of Telengana. This was consistent with its position of supporting smaller states. In fact, the first hints of an alliance between the TDP and BJP emerged when the bill to bifurcate AP was introduced in parliament in February.
The TDP had initially taken a position in favour of bifurcation but later backtracked. Its core vote base comes from the numerically powerful Khamma caste in coastal Andhra, and the party belatedly feared a backlash if it supported Telengana. This is when TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu tried to convince BJP to stall the bifurcation. But his request was refused. In fact, TDP leaders had openly accused the BJP of siding with the Congress in parliament. The result of the TDP’s flip-flop was that it had lost support in Telengana.
As a consequence, the real electoral battle in Telengana will be between the Congress and Telengana Rashtriya Samiti, the party that led the movement for separation. With the TDP in disarray, BJP has been allotted eight of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana and 47 of the 119 assembly seats. The large number of assembly seats the TDP has given away to the BJP is an indication that it has lost all hope of coming to power on its own in the new state of Telengana.
The BJP’s long-term objective is to take advantage of the situation and build its presence in the new state, just like it did in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand.
It is in Seemandhra that Naidu wants to win power. The BJP will contest in only five of the 25 Lok Sabha and 15 of the 175 assembly seats here. The clear aim is to defeat YS Jaganmohan Reddy, son of late Congress Chief Minister YS Rajashekar Reddy.
Jagan quit the Congress when it refused to make him chief minister after his father’s death in a helicopter crash in 2009. Since 2011, when he officially launched the YSR Congress, his influence has been growing. He has virtually replaced the Congress in this region and turned the election into a battle between his party and the TDP.
Naidu hopes the marginal votes that the BJP will pick up, coupled with a possible Modi wave, will give the TDP an edge. In many ways, the alliance with the BJP is a gamble for Naidu. “We will justify the alliance by projecting Modi as a leader who will do justice to Seemandhra,” said Abheeshta Seethapally, a TDP backroom manager with Naidu’s son, Nara Lokesh.
Will the gamble pay off?
In his public speeches Modi has often spoken of “justice for both sides” of the call for bifurcation and had treaded cautiously in the days leading to the passage of the bill to split Andhra Pradesh. However, it remains to be seen what impact Modi will have on an electorate that has never responded to the BJP.
At the end of the day, the BJP has nothing to lose on either side of a divided Andhra Pradesh. Whatever seats it gets here is a bonus as it won none in the previous two elections. The alliance with the TDP has no ideological basis, and whether it lasts after the elections will depend purely on the numbers of seats each side wins. It is the TDP that has enormous stakes in this alliance.
Ultimately, Chandrababu Naidu is nowhere near as strong as he was in 1999. In this second innings of his party’s association with the NDA, the power equations are firmly in the BJP’s favour – at least till the results are announced.
