TDP to return to NDA? Chandrababu Naidu meets Shah

Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu met Home Minister Amit Shah and Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda late Wednesday night amid indications that the two parties may join hands in Andhra Pradesh for upcoming polls.

Lok Sabha and assembly polls will be held simultaneously in the state.

Naidu met Shah at the home minister's residence, with sources saying that Nadda was also present in the meeting.

If Naidu returns to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, he will be the second major regional leader to have done so after Janata Dal-United president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the opposition and joined its fold last month.

The TDP president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister, sources said, is keen to join hands with the BJP and a section in the ruling party believes that an alliance with Naidu will help the NDA do well in the state ruled by the YSR Congress.

Naidu in the NDA will help the ruling alliance boost its tally, they said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently asserted in Parliament that his party will get 370 seats and the NDA will cross 400 in the polls, expected in April-May, to the 543-member House.

The BJP has no Lok Sabha member from the state currently.

A senior BJP leader said his party is open to an alliance but it will all depend on how many seats the TDP, the main opposition party in the state, agrees to give it, especially for the Lok Sabha polls.

Both had fought the 2014 polls together when Telangana was yet to be formally separated from Andhra Pradesh. The BJP had then fought three seats and won all of them out of the 42 seats in the united state.

Following Telangana's creation, Andhra Pradesh has 25 seats and the BJP is keen to contest on anywhere between six to eight seats, sources said.

The TDP had walked out of the NDA in 2018 but suffered majorly in the 2019 polls when it could win only three Lok Sabha seats and lost power in the state to the YSR Congress, which has mostly supported the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on key issues for the last five years.

However, political equations have prompted the BJP to explore the possibility of reviving its ties with the TDP, which has been pursuing the matter in earnest for long.

Actor Pawan Kalyan-led Jana Sena Party, which was a BJP ally, has already decided to join hands with the TDP.