Politics in India has witnessed a decisive shift after the five state assembly elections. As the saffron brigade is marching into four states, apparently the BJP leaders in Andhra Pradesh are gearing up for a fight with ally in the state. TDP and BJP have been allies from the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The BJP at center aspires to continue their alliance with TDP evident in the conversations of Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu. However a few BJP leaders in the state are unhappy with TDP’s conduct. One such person is MLC Somu Veerraju who is disgruntled with the ruling party. Not just Veerraju, other BJP leaders like Kanna Lakshminarayana and D Purandeshwari, periodically vent their frustration against the TDP government.
There are a lot of leaders who switched loyalties from Congress to BJP post the bifurcation of the state. This anti-Chandrababu faction is unable to accept the amity of BJP-TDP and tend to create noise. Moreover, BJP as such is not contented with the approach of their ally and on the face of it are looking at various possibilities ahead of the 2019 elections.
BJP Mahila Morcha National Incharge Purandeswari in a public address at Vijayawada said that people are unhappy with TDP and if this behaviour continues, BJP might want to reconsider its relations with the TDP. She also said prior to the 2014 general elections, the BJP had a membership of two lakh and in the past two years the membership has increased to 25 lakh in Andhra Pradesh.
On the other hand the BJP leadership is not subduing these leaders from expressing disgruntlement. In the offing these leaders are perhaps getting directions from the leadership. The center did not speak against TDP, but they did seem to concentrate less on the state at the moment. However, Chandrababu, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah seem to have only strengthened their ties. Union Government’s committee on cashless transactions in India was headed by the AP CM, with five other chief ministers, NITI Aayog members, academia and other experts.
Even then BJP was not given enough importance in nominated posts. Chandrababu allotted the seat of North Andhra Graduates constituency to BJP where both the leader PNV Madhav and the party are not popular. Chandrababu Naidu had to direct his MPs and MLAs to campaign for them. A lot of them had apprehensions about alliance in the initial days, post the allotment of seats this opposition augmented.
Nevertheless most of the criticism from BJP is apolitical. Purandeswari acknowledged of having difference of opinion and had been trying to resolve issues internally. It is yet to be seen if the migrators will help BJP in enlarging its footprint in the state politics. The national leadership is likely to examine the alliance with a fine tooth comb before giving any wrong signals.
