TDP supremo Naidu evades direct reply on rejoining NDA

VIJAYAWADA: Evading a direct reply about whether Telugu Desam will rejoin the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre, TDP supremo and Leader of Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu has felt that it is better to ask the question to those spreading such propaganda.

Asserting that the TDP came out of the NDA only to safeguard the State’s interests, Naidu maintained that the party looks at national politics only from the point of view of protecting the interest of Andhra Pradesh.

After snapping ties with the BJP and walking out of the NDA fold in 2018, the TDP chief targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the saffron party and even joined hands with the Congress at the national level.

However, after losing power in the State in the 2019 elections, the TDP remained silent against the BJP and extended its support to the NDA government in Parliament and also supported the saffron party in the president and vice-president elections.

Though there has been speculation for a long time that the TDP leadership aspiring to join hands with the BJP once again, it attained significance following a brief interaction between Modi and Naidu at a meeting held in Delhi last month.

Even as BJP leaders maintained that they would not have any alliance with other political parties except Jana Sena in AP, several media reports indicated that the TDP and the BJP are set to join hands again.

During an informal interaction with media persons on the occasion of completing 27 years after becoming the Chief Minister, Naidu evaded a straight reply on the matter. Alleging that the State suffered more damage because of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy than the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, Naidu said Jagan was not committed to society.

Predicting that AP would stay on top in the country by 2029 if the TDP was in power, he underlined the need to rebuild the State after the damage caused by the YSRC regime in the past three years.