Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is fast ceding ground to the ruling YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh after the TDP’s humiliating defeat in last year’s Parliament and state elections. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has gone into overdrive to accelerate the TDP’s exit from the opposition space by encouraging top guns in the Naidu camp to desert, in the run-up to the elections for urban and rural bodies. In the meantime, the BJP is sparing no efforts to fill the vacuum left by Naidu’s party. Who’s more dangerous, Naidu or BJP – this is the question that is haunting the ruling party’s think-tank.
In the third round of defections Naidu suffered a serious setback. Main pillars of the party in Prakasam, Kurnool and Kadapa districts came crashing, shattering the confidence of the TDP rank and file. Before the general elections, Naidu saw the exit of his key lieutenants such as Avanthi Srinivas, Thota Narasimham and Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy, all sitting MPs during that time. The general elections left the TDP with just 23 out of 175 Assembly seats and three out of 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state with close to 40% vote share. Soon, it lost four of its Rajya Sabha members – YS Chowdary, TG Venkatesh, CM Ramesh and Garikapati Mohan Rao – to the BJP.
Ahead of the soon to be held local body elections, Naidu’s party is in for a fresh wave of defections, rattling the party at the grassroots level. The situation is so grave that the party is not in a position to field candidates for most posts in urban bodies, mandal and zilla parishads for want of spirited leaders. Abandoned by strong leaders, the TDP’s vulnerable situation is evident in the present elections in the faction-hit Prakasam, Kurnool and Kadapa districts. TDP failed to file nominations in more than 550 MPTCs (Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies). Blaming it on “arm-twisting” by the ruling party, Chandrababu met Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan and called for a fresh election notification.
Jagan captures home turf
In Kadapa, Jagan’s home district, the TDP is almost non-existent. AP Legislative Council former Deputy Chairman SV Satish Reddy, who waged a risky battle against Jagan’s family in Pulivendula from the TDP for over two decades, quit the party and embraced the YSRCP. Former minister P Ramasubba Reddy, whose family suffered heavily in feuds with the YSR faction for several years, also crossed over to Jagan’s party in pursuit of a safe shelter. The TDP failed to secure a single seat in Kadapa district in the last Assembly and Parliament elections.
In Kurnool district, the KE family headed by Krishnamurthy from the Backward Classes, Naidu’s contemporary in politics and former Deputy Chief Minister, is also looking for greener pastures. Krishnamurthy’s brother and former Minister Prabhakar resigned from the TDP on Thursday. Upset with the entry of their traditional rival Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy into the TDP, the KE brothers resorted to non-cooperation in elections in Dhone municipal town by not fielding candidates in any of the wards. The KE and Kotla families have been engaged in a turf war over Dhone and the former is peeved over Suryaprakash Reddy announcing a candidate for the municipal chairman post “unilaterally”. Prabhakar is facing cases relating to mining and Syambabu, Krishnamurthy’s son, is the prime accused in the murder of YSRCP leader Cherukulapadu Narayana Reddy. The KE family will have to be on good terms with Jagan to save their skin.
Naidu’s community under poaching
In Prakasam district, Karanam Balaram, sitting MLA representing Cheerala and militant leader from the Kammas next to former Assembly speaker late Kodela Sivaprasad in coastal Andhra, met the Chief Minister expressing his wish to join the YSRCP. Balaram is the second legislator from the Kamma community the TDP has been identified with, after Vallabhaneni Vamsi of Gannavaram, to cross over to the YSRCP. Balaram is a faction leader involved in several criminal cases, including murder cases.
The rivalry between Naidu and Jagan seems to have crossed the boundaries of politics. Naidu tried to demonstrate his politics of poaching by taking in 23 of his MLAs and eating into his party, now it is Reddy’s turn to pay his rival back in the same coin. In the process of finishing his rival off, Jagan treated the BJP as ‘enemy’s enemy is a friend’ and took its clandestine support in the general elections. But the BJP nurses its own ambition to grow on the ruins of Naidu’s party in Andhra Pradesh where it is non-existent.
The saffron party stepped up its vitriol against Jagan’s government on the question of his Christian identity and his government’s alleged promotion of religious conversions in an apparent bid to consolidate the Hindu vote. On controversial decisions of the YSRCP government, such as distributive capitals, retendering for the Polavaram project and revision of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) his predecessor Naidu had inked with independent power producers, the BJP is at its best out-beating the TDP in targeting Jagan. As part of the endeavour to fill the opposition space the BJP has entered into an alliance with actor Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party to put up a joint fight in the local body elections.
Fight between satraps: Blessing in disguise for BJP?
While the rival’s downfall obviously brings cheer to the YSRCP brass, some sections within the party express fears over the rise of the BJP with the TDP’s exit, which their leader Jagan may find difficult to contain.
Citing the live cases in Telangana and West Bengal, a senior leader from the Amaravati region urges the YSRCP chief to be prudent in his mission to wipe out the TDP lock, stock and barrel by drawing a lesson from Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. KCR identified relatively more potential threat from the BJP after it made substantial gains in the last Parliament elections, making inroads into his party’s bastions in north Telangana. Accordingly, KCR softened his stand towards the Congress in a conscious bid to pre-empt the BJP’s attempts to occupy the Congress’ opposition space, the leader recalled, wishing to remain anonymous.
Gali Nagaraja is a freelance journalist who writes on the two Telugu states.
Views expressed are the author’s own.