Changemakers to share dais at Chilakaluripet

Vijayawada: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena leader Pawan Kalyan will share the dais after a decade as they will come together for a public meeting at Chilakaluripet on March 17 to launch NDA's campaign for elections to Assembly and Lok Sabha in Andhra Pradesh.

The public meeting at Chilakaluripet will be the first by the three parties after they forged an electoral alliance last week. Naidu had never shared the public dais with Modi since walking out of the BJP-led NDA in 2018. However, Pawan Kalyan had addressed a public meeting with the PM in Hyderabad in November last year during the campaign for Telangana Assembly elections.

The three leaders will now be coming together at the Chilakaluripet meeting after a decade. It was in 2014 that they campaigned together. Jana Sena had not contested the elections then but Pawan Kalyan had campaigned for the TDP-BJP alliance. The TDP, BJP and JSP are working to make the March 17 meeting a huge success to launch their joint campaign on a grand scale. TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh, who is son of Chandrababu Naidu, will be overseeing the arrangements for the public meeting.

The TDP chief on Tuesday held a meeting with leaders of the coordination committee to finalise the arrangements.

The seat sharing agreement among three NDA partners was announced on Monday night. The TDP will contest 144 out of 175 Assembly seats and 17 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats. It left 31 Assembly segments and eight Lok Sabha seats for its allies. While Jana Sena will contest 21 Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats, the BJP will field its candidates in 10 Assembly and six Lok Sabha constituencies. The agreement was reached after eight-hour-long talks among the leaders of the three parties at Naidu’s residence at Undavalli.

Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, BJP national vice-president Baijayant Jay Panda and Jana Sena leader held talks with Naidu. The seat sharing was finalised three days after Naidu and Pawan Kalyan held talks with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda in New Delhi.

The TDP accepted the BJP's invitation to re-join NDA. TDP and BJP had together contested the 2014 elections in Andhra Pradesh with Jana Sena's support. The TDP-BJP alliance had come to power with 106 seats in the 175-member Assembly. While the TDP had won 102 seats and secured 58.29 per cent votes, the BJP had bagged four seats and polled 2.29 per cent votes. The YSRCP was the second largest party with 67 seats (38.28 per cent votes). In 2014, the TDP had won 15 Lok Sabha seats, while the BJP had bagged two.

Differences later cropped up among the NDA partners over the issue of special category status. While the JSP had distanced itself from the TDP and BJP barely a year later, Naidu severed ties with the BJP in 2018. In the 2019 elections, the TDP, BJP and JSP have contested the polls separately. While the TDP and BJP went alone, the JSP contested the polls in alliance with the BSP and Left parties. The TDP, which lost power to the YSR Congress, could win only 23 seats. The JSP won a single seat while the BJP drew a blank. The YSR Congress had also swept the Lok Sabha polls, winning 22 seats. The TDP had bagged the remaining three seats.

After the crushing defeat in the 2019 polls, the Jana Sena returned to the NDA. Though Chandrababu Naidu was also keen to revive the alliance with the BJP, the latter was cold to his moves due to friendly relations with the YSR Congress, which extended full support to the Modi government in passing crucial Bills in Parliament.