HYDERABAD:The signals sent out by the BJP and TRS leaderships about the possibility of blossoming a friendship between the two parties in the coming days now worry the TDP, which is an ally of the ruling NDA at the Centre.
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Telangana, the yellow party circles in the new state were busy with drawing inferences from the ‘friendly overtures’ made by Modi and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to each other, during PM’s visit last week.
Though no leader is ready to make open comments on this issue as their party boss and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu reportedly asked them not to do so, the general mood in the TDP’s Telangana unit is that the BJP might be preparing the ground to snap ties with the yellow party in the new state so as to sail with the ruling TRS.
“A section of leaders within the BJP are advocating severance of ties with us as they still see our party as an ‘Andhra’ party. By cutting off their relationship with us, they want to forge new friendship with the TRS as they think that the ruling party is still enjoying considerable clout among majority of people,” a veteran TDP leader commented.
According to him, when some of these leaders had expressed similar doubts before Naidu, who was in Hyderabad, he asked them not to express their doubts publicly.
“Our boss has asked us to adopt wait-and-watch approach to know how political developments would take shape in Telangana. As general elections are still three years away, Naidu told us that it is too early to predict about the possibility of a realignment of political forces in the state,” a TDP leader, belonging to Nizamabad district, said.
Interestingly, some other TDP leaders say if BJP decides to go soft against TRS, this would provide an opportunity to the yellow party to take on the ruling party hammer and tongs in the coming days.
“Such a scenario will provide an opportunity for our party to project itself as the only alternative to the TRS in state,” the leader said.