Amidst indications that a broader alliance comprising TDP, BJP, Lok Satta and Jana Sena could be in the offing, senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar continued with his opinion-gathering exercise with Telangana BJP leaders on forging a tie-up with the TDP.
Mr. Javadekar along with BJP national general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao, Telangana BJP president G. Kishan Reddy and former Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya sat with each State office-bearer of the Telangana unit and district presidents. They were asked whether they favoured an alliance with the TDP or not.
According to BJP sources, a majority of the leaders from Telangana favoured a tie-up but wanted the central party to insist on BJP staking claim to higher number of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats.
Although the BJP central leadership is believed to be keen on going ahead with the alliance, key RSS functionaries from Telangana, Mr. Kishan Reddy, Mr. Vidyasagar Rao, have been resisting the idea and want the party to contest all the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in the region on its own. They fear that tie-up with TDP would stunt the growth of BJP in Telangana and going alone would enable it to occupy larger political space.
A senior BJP leader said the broad-based opinion gathering exercise was meant to soften the stand of the hardliners as also to send a message that the central party was not acting unilaterally but in a democratic fashion.
Mr. Javadekar after briefing the BJP national leadership might hold formal consultations with Telugu Desam leaders in a day or two.
While Telangana BJP leaders earlier suggested that the party should seek around 60 of the 117 Assembly and 11 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats, it is learnt that they want the central party to negotiate a “respectale number”. The party is planning to seek Five out of 25 Lok Sabha and 25 of the 175 Assembly seats in Seemandhra region. The BJP wants TDP to be a junior partner in Telangana and vice versa in Seemandhra.
Meanwhile, the election committee of the Telangana unit met here on Friday and short-listed the names of the candidates for all the 17 Lok Sabha seats and also several Assembly constituencies.
Welcomes likeminded partiesVijayawada Staff Reporter adds: Lending credence to the speculation that Jana Sena Party (JSP) president Pawan Kalyan was keen on forging an alliance with the BJP, its national spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the dialogue was on with many personalities and parties that shared ‘Congress Hatao Desh Bachao’ slogan.
BJP welcomed such forces to achieve ‘Congress mukt Bharat’ which was to get rid of the ruling party. However, he neither took the name of Pawan Kalyan’s party or even TDP, which is also serious about joining hands with the BJP.
Addressing BJP Seemandhra committee’s first meeting here on Friday, Mr. Javadekar said since time was short, those willing to work with BJP should clinch issues without wasting further time and facilitate NDA’s return to power by making a joint effort for pulling the curtains down on UPA.
By voting the Congress party out, Mr. Javadekar asserted, people would be setting the country free from ‘absence of governance’ which did unprecedented damage to the economy.
The nation’s mood was overwhelmingly in favour of BJP and Narendra Modi becoming the Prime Minister. All the anti-Congress parties have to get in sync with that mood, Mr. Javadekar added.
