Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena leader Pawan Kalyan will be sharing a dais after a decade at a public meeting in Chilakaluripet on March 17. The alliance will launch their campaign for Andhra assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
The public meeting at Chilakaluripet in Palnadu district will be the first by the three parties after they forged an electoral alliance. Chandrababu had never shared public dais with PM Modi since walking out of the BJP-led NDA in 2018. In November 2023, Pawan Kalyan addressed a public meeting with PM Modi ahead of the Telangana Assembly elections.
The TDP-Jana Sena-BJP last shared a stage in 2014. Jana Sena had not contested the elections but Pawan Kalyan had campaigned for the TDP-BJP alliance in Andhra Pradesh post the bifurcation of Telugu states.
The TDP, BJP and JSP are working to make the March 17 public meeting a huge success to launch their joint campaign on a grand scale. TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh will be overseeing the arrangements for the public meeting.
The seat sharing agreement among three NDA partners was announced on Monday night. The TDP will contest 144 out of 175 Assembly seats and 17 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats. It left 31 Assembly segments and eight Lok Sabha seats for the two allies.
While Jana Sena will contest 21 Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats, the BJP will field its candidates in 10 Assembly and six Lok Sabha constituencies. The agreement was reached after eight-hour-long talks among the leaders of the three parties at Chandrababu Naidu’s residence in Undavalli.
The TDP-BJP alliance had come to power in 2014 with 106 seats in the 175-member Assembly. While TDP had won 102 seats and secured 58.29 per cent votes, BJP had bagged four seats and polled 2.29 per cent votes. YSRCP was the second largest party with 67 seats (38.28 per cent votes).
The TDP had won 15 Lok Sabha seats while BJP had bagged two.
The TDP and BJP split over the issue of special category status for Andhra Pradesh. While JSP had distanced itself from TDP and BJP barely a year later, Naidu severed ties with the BJP in 2018.
In the 2019 elections, TDP, BJP and JSP have contested the polls separately. While TDP and BJP went alone, the JSP contested the polls in alliance with BSP and the Left parties. TDP, which lost power to the YSR Congress, could win only 23 seats. JSP won a single seat while BJP drew a blank.
The YSR Congress had also swept the Lok Sabha polls, winning 22 seats. The TDP had bagged the remaining three seats.