The conversations that we’re having in the last 36 hours — this is one of the high points of being a journalist! After over a decade, alliance politics is taking centre stage at the Union government level in the country, and that means a lot of politicking, a lot of looking at who wants what, and a lot of understanding of the political ideologies and personal desires of our politicians. Quick TL;DR — the BJP has emerged as the single largest party in the General Elections, but with 240 seats, they’re far below the halfway mark of 272. The NDA however has a majority with 293 seats in total — however, that includes 12 seats from Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), and 16 seats from Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Nitish Kumar is known for jumping ship on alliance partners, and Chandrababu Naidu has had a bitter past in the NDA — so does that mean there are chances that they’ll switch to the INDIA alliance, giving them the lead?
Here’s what we’ve heard, in short: The INDIA alliance is making efforts to bring the two leaders to their side, but it seems they’re looking at a more longer-term play than a quick one. Both Nitish and Chandrababu are expected to stand with the NDA as the BJP stakes claim to form the government as the single largest party — however, INDIA is working on making both leaders switch over in six months or so.
Why would either of them consider switching though? Chandrababu has many reasons — and he especially is not a fan of Amit Shah. Also, the BJP is not on board with one of his big promises in Andhra — in fact there was some pressure put on a media organisation to change the language in one of their stories from “NDA manifesto” to “TDP manifesto” because of this one point. More on this below.
Nitish, for his part, is weighing his options.