Ending days of wrangling over seat-sharing, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Prakash Javadekar and his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) counterparts burnt the midnight oil on Saturday, clinching a deal on an alliance for the Lok Sabha election. While both sides had opponents and votaries of the alliance, BJP Telangana unit president G. Kishan Reddy was conspicuous by his absence at the press conference in which TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu and Mr. Javadekar announced the alliance.
Mr. Kishan Reddy expressed unhappiness that the TDP did not concede many seats, but said he would work for the victory of the alliance. Party activists were dissatisfied and he was trying to pacify them.
Mr. Javadekar, deputed by the national leadership to convince Mr. Reddy and other younger leaders from Telangana, had to make several trips to Hyderabad to clinch the deal. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in Telangana was against the alliance, and wanted the BJP to fight the elections independently to expand its base.
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At the press meeting, Mr. Naidu declared that he had decided to return to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in national, State and people’s interests as the “scam-tainted” Congress-led United Progressive Alliance rule had ruined the country. A corruption-free, stable government was required at the Centre, he said, and forecast that the NDA would return to power with 300-plus Lok Sabha seats.
It was in 2004 that Mr. Naidu ended the TDP’s six-year association with the NDA following the party’s debacle in the election held that year. Subsequently, Mr. Naidu dubbed the BJP “communal” on several occasions, and declared that his party would have nothing to do with it. The TDP now feels justice can be secured to the Seemandhra region if it supports the party which is likely to form a government at the Centre..