SEPT 24- Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu has the reputation of being a kingmaker.
As the United Front chairman in the mid-nineties, Naidu picked H.D. Deve Gowda out of the relative obscurity of Karnataka and against all odds catapulted him to the Prime Minister’s post.
Then he did the same with Inder Kumar Gujral after then Congress chief Sitaram Kesri pulled the rug from under Gowda’s feet.
However, as general elections draw near, Naidu refuses to commit himself to the course of action he will adopt now.
“All options barring the Congress are open. I’ve always been opposed to the Congress but nothing has been decided yet,” he said.
Naidu’s statement is significant since it comes a day after he met the BJP president Rajnath Singh.
The meeting came at a time when speculation is rife whether a BJP led by its PM candidate Narendra Modi will be able to win back the party’s former allies and whether these parties will accept his leadership.
Naidu, a former Andhra Pradesh chief minister, is conscious of the fact that he has a sizable minority vote to contend within the state.
Hence he is unwilling to commit himself about his future course of action.
“I’ve held intensive consultations with leaders from across the spectrum. The Congress has ruined the country and we need to find an alternative. What that alternative will be and who will lead it is still undecided,” said Naidu.
Though Naidu does not say it in so many words in Andhra Pradesh, he clearly feels hemmed in, with a belligerent Congress on one side and a resurgent Jaganmohan Reddy on the other.
He has little alternative but to gravitate towards the BJP.
He also appears to have been outmanoeuvered by the Congress on statehood for Telangana.
It is perhaps a reflection of the situation that he now finds himself in that Naidu believes the Congress and the YSR Congress are working in tandem to finish him off politically.
“There is an understanding between the two, the cases against Jagan are being diluted and after the elections he will support them (the Congress). They’ve also persuaded the TRS to merge their party with the Congress,” said Naidu.
Given his sense of isolation, it is perhaps a fair guess that Naidu may eventually decide to go back to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The TDP left the NDA just before the 2004 general elections and Naidu had described the decision to join the BJP-led combine as his “biggest political blunder”.
However, after nearly 10 years out of power, Naidu may perhaps do a rethink, though he is still not willing to go stick his neck out on this one, just yet.
INDIA TODAY
