HYDERABAD: Implying that TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu would back the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) chief K Chandrasekhar Rao has said that NDA would become stronger with the support it would get from AP and Tamil Nadu.
Speaking to reporters at Telangana Bhavan, after arrival from New Delhi, the TRS supremo came down heavily on the Third Front and described it as an ``illusion and a pipe dream.’’ ``Never in my campaign did I express support to the Third Front which is an opportunistic alliance,’’ he said and wanted to know whom the Left Parties had consulted before declaring that they would s e e k t h e s u p p o r t o f t h e Congress for formation of Government at the Centre.
Defending his decision to back the NDA, Rao said that the Left Parties never supported separate Telangana State. As the TRS wanted to crush the Congress in the State which was the stumbling block for creation of a separate State, ``we struck an alliance with the Left Parties,’’ he said adding that it was a temporary arrangement to achieve our term benefit of decimating the Congress. He lashed out at the UPA for pursing ``politics of opportunism.’’ The Congress was putting forth an argument that BSP supremo Mayawathi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar were with the UPA.
``They were never with the UPA and everybody knew about it,’’ he said, dropping a hint that Mayawathi might surface in the NDA camp.
He expressed confidence that the NDA would be able to muster as many as 300 seats and form the Government. ``In 2004 elections I had said the UPA would be in and NDA would be out. This time it is the other way round and it is going to happen,’’ he predicted.