Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national president and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is apparently making swift moves towards forging an alliance of regional parties ahead of the general elections in 2019.
Mr. Naidu, who has been claiming that his party would decide the prime ministerial candidate, met a host of leaders of regional parties in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Interestingly, he also met leaders of the CPI and CPI(M), which have been very critical of him during the last four years, and refused to lend their support to him in his endeavours for the Special Category Status (SCS). The development could be an initiative for a broad-based anti-BJP platform before the general elections.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banarjee suggested forming a grand alliance. A definite shape of the regional parties’ alliance would emerge only after a national-level meet of regional parties was convened.
Mr. Naidu tweeted, “Met with @MamataOfficial & Mayawati ji at the swearing in ceremony of @hd_kumaraswamy as Karnataka’s CM. We’re here to strengthen the regional parties and will work together to protect and promote national interests.”
Tight-lipped on
support to Cong.
The TDP supremo, however, was non-committal on his support to the Congress, his bete noire in Andhra Pradesh. “We wanted to promote and strengthen regional parties. I wish to see regional political parties grow in Indian politics. That is Mamataji’s and our party’s mission and that is how we are working,” he said.
But, the TDP president, a month ago, dropped enough hints that his party would lend outside support to a non-BJP alliance, recalling his that the TDP gave outside support to the UF in 1996. The UF, which had the backing of the Congress and the Left, was a patchwork secular substitute to the BJP that formed the government then. Mr. Naidu met, among others, Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI leaders S. Sudhakar Reddy and D. Raja, and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.
