Indicating that he may be moving closer to the BJP, TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu is understood to have spoken highly of the saffron party and the subtle change in its stand on the State bifurcation issue at a brainstorming session with his partymen here Friday.
Citing a survey conducted by a media house, he reportedly observed that the wind was blowing in favour of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the North and commented that efforts to stitch together a third front were going nowhere. The online survey, in which 51 per cent predicted a landslide for the TDP in the State, seems to have cheered him up. As per the survey, the TDP is closely followed by the BJP with 23.3 per cent, YSRC 13.6 and TRS 5.
“Only two percent voters supported the Congress which means no educated person is willing to vote for the party,” Naidu told his colleagues. Sources said Naidu referred to BJP president Rajnath Singh and opined he wouldn’t fall into the Congress trap. “The BJP president wanted the Congress to spell out how it is going to compensate Seemandhra before seeking his support to divide the State,” he pointed out.
Naidu felt this subtle change in BJP’s stand was similar to the TDP’s, indicating that there was something in common between the two parties. Naidu has been trying to move closer to the BJP for some time now.
The TDP chief recently shared dais with Narendra Modi in Delhi. Prior to that, Modi, in his visit to Hyderabad, praised late NTR sky high, indicating that he was not averse to working with the TDP.
Naidu, at the inaugural of the brainstorming session, said the Congress would be wiped out of existence in the entire country in 2014 general elections. He said the schedule for the elections would be announced in the first week of March and therefore, the party workers should be ready to face elections.
In his nearly two-hour long opening remarks, he reiterated several of the issues including state bifurcation and the party stance, need for strategies to cash in on the anti-Congress wave in the country and in the state, need for effective combating of the allegations levelled by Congress and other parties against TDP and projecting TDP as the only party capable of bailing out the people from the prevailing confusion and crisis.
‘’Understanding that anti- Congress wave is building up strong in the country and the state, that party, which is mired neck deep in corruption, has now decided to bifurcate the state to gain politically.
Resorting to match-fixing politics, it has a secret understanding with TRS on one hand and YSR Congress party on the other, to gain both positive and negative votes and there by seats in both the regions post-bifurcation,’’ he said and added that Congress party state affairs incharge Digvijaya Singh had pretty much attested it, when he said TRS would merge with Congress and YSRCP has Congress DNA. He described it as political corruption at its worst.
He wondered why the tradition of going by state Assembly resolutions, which were followed in creation of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, even in bifurcation of Andhra from Madras state and later merger of Andhra and Hyderabad states is not being followed. Such deviation from the tradition is against the federal spirit, he added.
| Full coverage State Elections 2013 Specials on: Narendra Modi | Rahul Gandhi | Sachin Tendulkar | World Chess Championship | VoXpress | Indian GP |