'Uniting to save nation': Chandrababu Naidu, Rahul Gandhi join hands

New Delhi: To defeat BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu joined hands with Congress president Rahul Gandhi. The decision of uniting with Congress was taken during the meeting between the two leaders at the Congress president’s residence in Delhi on Thursday.

“We are coming together, to save the nation. We have to forget the past, now it is a democratic compulsion to unite. All opposition needs to be one,” Chandrababu Naidu told the media after meeting Rahul Gandhi.

“We have a past. Both of us agreed that we are not going to talk about our past and talk about our future,” Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Naidu added.

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Addressing the media, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said, “We had a very good meeting, the gist was that we have to defend democracy and future of the country. So we are coming together to work, all opposition forces must unite.”

Naidu is partnering the Congress for the upcoming assembly elections in Telangana.

Recently, the TDP president was also invited to join the UPA by senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily.

Naidu, who split from the NDA in March, has taken over the role of a "facilitator" for a broader opposition unity and met NCP chief Sharad Pawar and National Congress leader Farooq Abdullah in Delhi earlier on Thursday.

The TDP, traditionally, has been anti-Congress and in the late 1990s contested state elections in alliance with the Left parties. It aligned with the BJP in 1999, 2004 and 2014, and in 2009, the TDP was with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti against the Congress.