The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) virtually set a deadline for Telugu Desam to decide by Friday on forging an alliance as seat-sharing talks hit a roadblock again with both the parties sticking to their guns.
Senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar, who arrived here on Thursday, held another round of talks with TDP leaders -- Sujana Chowdhary and C.M. Ramesh. Telangana BJP president G. Kishan Reddy was also present during the discussions, it is learnt.
The leaders reportedly exchanged notes on the final tally of seats to be contested. The BJP is seeking 45-48 of the 119 Assembly seats and nine of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana and 25 of the 175 Assembly seats and five of 25 Lok Sabha seats in Seemandhra. But the TDP is firm on not conceding more than 30 Assembly and eight LS seats in Telangana.
The talks faced a fresh hurdle with the BJP insisting on a higher number. The TDP leaders reportedly assured their BJP counterparts that they would place the proposal before TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu, who was away in Vijayawada, and take a decision.
Accusing the TDP of resorting to “delaying tactics”, a BJP leader told The Hindu that if the Telugu Desam failed to get back to us by Friday, the party central leadership might go ahead and declare the first list of candidates in next couple of days. Mr. Javadekar is scheduled to leave city on Friday.
Meanwhile, the TDP leaders said the BJP’s demands were “unreasonable”. “We are not against giving 25 Assembly seats (plus a couple of them more) in Telangana. It is for the BJP to respond,” a senior TDP leader said.
He said some senior leaders were in touch with Mr. Naidu. “But we are not aware of any deadline being set by the BJP,” he added.
