Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is aiming to acquire his Telugu Desam Party a national party status by 2019.
The 34-year-old party, founded by Naidu’s father-in-law and matinee idol late N.T. Rama Rao, has its representatives in the Lok Sabha from the two Telugu states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. But as per the Election Commission rules, a political party should have MPs from three states to be recognised as a national party.
And so the TDP has decided to field candidates in Lok Sabha constituencies with significant number of Telugu-speaking voters in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andaman and Nicobar islands in the 2019 elections.
Currently the TDP has 16 MPs from AP and Telangana. In a political resolution adopted at the party’s three-day annual general body meeting “Mahanadu”, the TDP made its national ambitions clear and said it would strive to emerge as a national party before the general elections.
"NTR was the architect of the National Front. This ended with VP Singh becoming the Prime Minister. Then, we worked for United Front and we had two Prime Ministers (HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral)," said Naidu, who himself had played a key role during the formation of the United Front.
Chandrababu Naidu recalled the contribution of the party founder late NTR in building a first non-Congress front at the national level and how TDP was able to secure the opposition party status in the Lok Sabha in 1984.
Meanwhile the party passed ten resolutions at the Mahanadu, including the political resolution that called for freeing politics of economic offenders.
