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Lalita Iyer
Lalita Iyer

HYDERABAD

Tension in BJP-TDP alliance

PTI5_18_2017_000210B BJP President Amit Shah addressing a press confrence after completing 3 years of NDA government during the press preview in New Delhi on Friday | PTI

There has been an underlying note of discontent among BJP men in Andhra Pradesh and for quite some time now. They have been showing their displeasure in various ways. With BJP party president Amit Shah coming into town, they showed their angst in front of the party honcho.

Meanwhile, there was enough bonhomie between the BJP and Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh. Amit Shah, AP CM Chandrababu Naidu and Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu shared a helicopter ride into Vijayawada, breaking bread at Naidu's temporary residence at the Lingamaneni guest house near Velagapudi, along with Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. The discussions veered around political developments, the alliance between the two parties and the ensuing presidential election.

If that was for public consumption, Amit Shah got a taste of the resentment from his party workers, with a section of the saffron party’s cadre wanting to end the alliance between the TDP and BJP and go at it alone in the next elections.

He was interrupted by unhappy party workers during a meeting at Vijayawada, who held placards and raised slogans “Leave TDP, Save BJP”.

This was the first time that Shah addressed a state-wide booth level public meeting of BJP’s AP unit at the coastal city of Vijayawada. The slogan-shouting became louder when Union Minister M.Venkaiah Naidu started addressing the gathering.

In fact, party senior leader and former Congress MP K. Sambasiva Rao met Shah with the advice that the national president should sever ties with TDP in view of the growing public anger against the state government.

Rao was probably just airing his personal opinion but it amounted to saying that the BJP should quickly occupy the political vacuum in the state, since according to him people are unhappy with the performance of the current government. At present, two of the BJP MLAs are part of Naidu’s cabinet.

The AP BJP leaders feel that, to expand their base in the state, they necessarily need to end the alliance. But Shah is a seasoned politician and without making any commitments he told the cadre to work towards strengthening the party at the booth level. In fact he said, “I will be after you (state BJP leaders) till the party strengthens in every village and booth to make AP the strongest fort in south India,” he said.

Out of nearly 42,000 polling booths in the state, the BJP has formed its committees in 25,000 booths. “Last year, when I came here I said AP will become BJP’s stronghold. Today, I want to say in entire south India, if there is one state where it will be the strongest, it would be Andhra Pradesh," he said.

Listing out the achievements of the NDA government during the last three years, he said that the Centre had so far granted Rs 1.75 lakh crore worth projects for AP. In addition, the Centre would also foot the bill for the multipurpose Polavaram irrigation project, Shah said.

Shah described the meeting in Vijayawada as the beginning of BJP's victory march in Andhra Pradesh and exuded confidence that it would prove a milestone in the history of the state.

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Topics : #BJP | #TDP

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