After pulling out, Chandrababu Naidu changes strategy

TDP moves no-confidence motion against BJP government, in an effort to deny credit to YSRCP

TDP MPs demand Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh, in New Delhi on Friday.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Friday pulled out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as it had “denied Special Category Status (SCS) and failed to fulfil the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.”

The decision to end the about four-year-old alliance was announced by TDP president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu during a teleconference with the party’s polit bureau members here in the morning.

Minutes after pulling out, Mr. Naidu changed his strategy of supporting the

YSRCP’s no-confidence motion against the Narendra Modi government in the Lok Sabha and directed his party MPs to take the initiative and move it. Apparently the TDP wanted to take the credit for moving the motion denying the same to YSRCP, the main Opposition in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly.

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Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan read both the YSRCP and TDP motions before announcing that she was unable take them up as the House was not in order. Both these parties would now move the motions afresh on Monday.

Though the fate of these motions looks uncertain, the two-day recess is being used by Mr. Naidu and YSRCP president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to mobilise support from non-NDA parties. YSRCP MPs have been meeting the floor leaders to seek their support during the last two days, while the TDP MPs started the exercise on Friday. YSRCP MP Vijayasai Reddy said Mr. Naidu’s move lacked credibility as he did a U-turn on SCS and now on moving out of NDA.

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TDP MP C.M. Ramesh asserted that given the anti-BJP mood they would be to able to mobilise the requisite number of 54 MPs to enable them to discuss denial of SCS and other bifurcation issues pending with the Centre. Both parties claim the support of Congress, Left parties and Trinamool Congress.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called up Mr. Naidu to congratulate him for walking out of NDA and tweeted: “I welcome the TDP’s decision to leave the NDA. The current situation warrants such action to save the country from disaster.”

During the teleconference, Mr. Naidu is believed to have told the polit bureau members that he would write a letter to BJP president Amit Shah, explaining why the party is leaving the NDA and the developments in the last four years when the Union government's support to the State was not to the level expected by the people.

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In a lengthy explanation to members of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council on why he had to take the “difficult” decision of quitting NDA, Mr. Naidu said he had waited patiently for the last four years sticking to “alliance dharma”, hoping that the NDA would extend its full support to the State that was left without a capital, huge revenue deficit and no big industry.

“I have made trips to Delhi 29 times. But when we realised that far from helping the State during the last four Union Budgets, the Centre hatched a political conspiracy using YSRCP and Jana Sena to weaken the TDP and denying benefits, even those listed in the bifurcation Act, passed by Parliament, we decided to pull out.”