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TDP may tie up with BJP

Shireen in Hyderabad

The ruling Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh does not favour simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly elections.

TDP president and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday said that there was no need to club the two polls. The term of the state assembly ends in January next whereas the snap polls to the Lok Sabha will be held within two or three months. "There is political stability in the state. The assembly polls will be held as per schedule," he said.

Naidu, however, said that the TDP was ready to face the snap polls to the Lok Sabha. "We are not afraid of polls and we have faced several elections in the last five years," he said and added that developmental activities would come to a standstill in view of the snap polls.

Launching a tirade against the Congress for destabilising the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government at the Centre, the TDP chief said that the Congress, right from the day Atal Behari Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister in March 1998, had resorted to machinations and ultimately instigated All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha to pull down the government.

The Congress brazenly violated democratic norms and got Orissa Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang, who technically continued to be a member of the Lok Sabha, to cast his vote against the confidence vote on April 17.

On the question whether the TDP would have an electoral alliance with the BJP for the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, Naidu remained evasive.

He recalled that the TDP had extended conditional, issue-based support from outside to the BJP coalition. He said that the Congress continued to be the first target of the TDP. The Left parties had snapped their alliance with the TDP and moved closer to the Congress. The TDP was not alone, he maintained, since it had the people's support.

He hinted that the TDP would not rule out the possibility of a poll alliance with the BJP. He felt that the Congress would pay a heavy price for destabilising the Vajpayee government and forcing yet another mid-term poll on the country.

The people have seen through the party's game plan to capture power by hook or by crook. The party also indulged in horse-trading and sought to split smaller parties to garner the numbers required to form a government.

He virtually accused the Congress of using Jayalalitha as a 'pawn' in pursuit of power. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he claimed, lacked the credentials to head a government. He alleged that AP Congress unit president Y S Rajasekhar Reddy and Congress legislature party leader P Janardhan Reddy camped in Delhi for several days and attempted to lure the MPs from the Opposition camp with inducements.

The TDP chief predicted that a coalition government would be formed after the snap polls since the days of single-party rule are over. Asked whether there was a sympathy wave for the BJP in the wake of the toppling of the Vajpayee government, he said that things would turn out to be quite bad for the Congress.

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