Till the other day, the Telugu Desam Party headed by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had been going soft towards the Bharatiya Janata Party, hoping to revive the ties with the saffron party ahead of the coming assembly elections in the state.
Naidu himself met top BJP leaders like Amit Shah and J P Nadda and went out of the way to praise Prime Minister Narendra Modi, describing him as a visionary and saying that the opposition alliance does not have a leader to match Modi’s calibre.
But things have gone against Naidu for the last one month. First it was the serving of I-T notices to Naidu in connection with the payment of alleged kickbacks of Rs 118 crore by an infrastructure company. Then came the sensational Rs 371 crore skill development scam exposed by the Andhra CID.
Both the cases are believed to have been filed against Naidu with full knowledge of the BJP national leadership. If it was the Income Tax deparment which issued notices in the first case, it was the Enforcement Directorate which unearthed the skill development scam.
After realising that the BJP top leadership is assisting the Jagan government in targeting Naidu, the TDP has taken a U-turn on taking a soft stand on the BJP. The TDP social media has already started targeting the BJP leadership in Delhi for the witch-hunt of Naidu.
Though local BJP leaders like Daggubati Purandeshwari, Y Satya Kumar, C M Ramesh, T G Venkatesh and Sujana Chowdary initially condemned the arrest of Naidu, they have gone silent now, much to the anguish of the TDP leaders.
On Wednesday, senior TDP leader Ch Ayyanna Patrudu wondered why the Delhi bosses have remained tight-lipped over the developments in the state.
“Are they silent because the big bosses in the national capital are behind the arrest of Naidu and foisting of false cases against him?” he asked.
Stating that all the systems in the state had stooped down to a low-level to target Naidu, Ayyanna sought to know what the silence of the Central leaders would indicate.
“What is the use of Modi and Shah conducting G-20 summits in Delhi when the state government was resorting to vengeance politics in AP?” he asked.
This has given rise to the talk that the TDP has decided to give up its attempts to pamper the BJP and shift to the I.N.D.I.A camp.
It was evident from the way one opposition leader after the other in the anti-BJP camp started condemning Naidu’s arrest and witch-hunt by the Jagan government.
Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Farooq Abdulla, Sukhbir Singh Badal and RJD leader Manoj Jha posted messages on social media denouncing Naidu’s arrest and extending support to him.
This led to the speculations that Naidu might take a plunge into the opposition camp once again and start attacking the BJP.
It remains to be seen how the BJP will react to the latest situation.
