The ruling YSR Congress party in Andhra Pradesh led by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is going to play a crucial role in the next month’s Presidential elections, especially in the wake of the reports that the National Democratic Alliance is falling short of a few votes to get its candidate elected.
Though there is no possibility of all the opposition parties coming together to put up a common candidate for the Presidential election at present, the Bharatiya Janata Party doesn’t want the contest to become tough; instead, it wants its candidate elected without any hassles.
According to analysts, the neutral votes of Biju Janata Dal, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and YSR Congress party are very important for the elections.
In the last elections, the TRS openly extended support to the BJP candidate Ramnath Kovind on the ground that he is a Dalit and the TRS was also enjoying good terms with Prime Minister Narendra Modi then.
This time, the TRS has been openly opposing the BJP; so, its MLAs and MPs definitely do not support the BJP candidate. If there is any non-BJP and non-Congress candidate, the TRS members would vote for him or her.
The Biju Janata Dal, too, does not enjoy the kind of friendly relationship it had with the BJP in the past. So, there is a possibility that it will also support a neutral candidate rather than a BJP candidate, unless the BJP field a non-controversial person like an ST or a minority candidate like Ghulam Nabi Azad.
So, the BJP has to invariably bank on the YSRC, which has huge strength in the assembly and also good number of MPs.
If YSRC openly declares its support to the NDA candidate, then BJP doesn’t have to depend on any other party at all and he can straightaway win the election without any hassles.
However, Jagan also may back out if the BJP fields Venkaiah Naidu. Only if the candidate is acceptable to Jagan, the YSRC would support him or her.
Under these circumstances, it remains to be seen how the BJP will convince Jagan in this regard.
