After TDP’s exit from NDA, BJP eyes growth in Andhra Pradesh

New Delhi: The BJP on Friday said that Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to quit the NDA will have a positive outcome.

The “panic” decision by its old ally, the BJP said, will help it grow as a political force on its own in the southern state. The BJP has currently only two Lok Sabha MPs from the state.  

Mr Naidu quit the NDA on Friday over the Central government’s refusal to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh,

The saffron party is of the view that TDP’s decision to quit the BJP-led NDA was inevitable as the feedback reaching Mr Naidu was suggesting that the political graphs of TDP’s arch rivals — Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy-led YSR Congress and Jana Sena’s Pawan Kalyan — were rising.

During the last Assembly elections, getting Andhra the special category status was the TDP’s main poll plank. However, the YSR Congress was seen as taking a lead on the issue, a BJP leader said.

The TDP, he said, quit the NDA as it was under pressure for its failure to get its primary demand — special category status for Andhra — fulfilled despite being part of the ruling alliance.

“It would have suited the TDP if the BJP was blamed (for the special category status), but Mr Naidu started feeling the heat when the YSR Congress started blaming the TDP for the delay,” said a BJP leader.

“Quitting the NDA has only sent a negative message to TDP voters as he (Naidu) has himself said that he met the PM on so many occasions and taken up the issue so many times,” he said.  

Sources disclosed that the TDP was also not happy with the BJP’s efforts to strengthen and expand its base in the state.   

The BJP top brass had been receiving numerous complaints from its state cadre that saffron party leaders and workers were being sidelined under the Naidu government.

A senior party leader said saffron cadres have on numerous occasions complained that the Andhra government was “renaming” many Central government schemes as state government schemes. Citing one example, he said that under the PM housing scheme only TDP’s  supporters got benefits.

BJP president Amit Shah is expected to meet the party’s core group leaders from Andhra Pradesh on Saturday. Though this meeting was scheduled almost two weeks ago, this latest development will now be part of the agenda.