State BJP is not greatly enthused by the idea of increasing the strength of Assembly in Andhra Pradesh. According to highly placed sources in BJP, a section of leaders has conveyed its views to the party high command in New Delhi. In their view, increasing the number of seats in Assembly from the present 175 to 225 would greatly benefit the Yellow party rather than helping the Saffron party expand itself into new constituencies.
A vocal section, which is on warpath with the Telugu Desam party, is said to have advised the central party to think twice before taking steps to appointing delimitation commission for the purpose.
Ever since the bifurcation came into effect, the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been lobbying for the increase of the strength of their assemblies. At present Andhra Pradesh Assembly has 175 MLAs while Telananga 119. Telanganan wants the number be raised to 153.
The assemblies of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have also adopted resolutions urging the centre to initiate steps to increase the number of seats to impart stability in the states. As recently as February 20, 2016, Telangana chief secretary Rajiv Sharma wrote a letter to union home secretary reminding the demand from the state government. The letter says, ” … in order to strengthen the democratic institutions and to provide social justice to the people of Telangana, the Government of India may initiate action to place the matter before the election commission of India for increase of the seats in Legislative Assembly of Telangana state from 119 to 153, as envisaged in the AP Reorganization Act, 2014.”
As for Andhra Pradesh, on March 16, 2016 AP Assembly adopted a resolution to this effect. Three days back while addressing the party leaders Chief Minister Chandrabau Naidu sought to allay the fears of party leaders in view of Operation Akarsh.They fear the YSRC MLAs defecting to TDP would rob their chance of contesting the 2019 electoins.
” There is need to take more leaders from other parties. Bring more more like-minded people. You need not worry about your seats. We are getting the Assembly seats increased and you interests will be taken care of,” Naidu reassured the old-guards of the party.
Against this background, BJP thinks, keeping an eye on the possible increase of seats in Assembly Naidu is pursuing defections aggressively. At the present strength, there would be nothing that the BJP gains from this hike in the number of MLAs in Assembly.
“Already, TDP government has benefited from the huge central funding without even giving credit to PM Narendra Modi, forget the BJP. BJP is finding it difficult to build the party upon the central schemes as they have already been renamed to suit TDP and Naidu. So, increasing the seats won’t help the BJP win more seats, TDP again reap benefits,” a senior leader lamented and alleged that some vested interests were involved in this lobbying for the increase of strength of Assembly.
