HYDERABAD : Telangana BJP leaders are worried over the possibility of TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu bringing pressure on their national leadership to direct the state unit to strike an alliance with his party and Jana Sena to fight the Greater Hyderabad elections, which are due next year.
The leaders are on the edge after Naidu said last Sunday in Hyderabad that he would revive TDP in Telangana. They believe that such an alliance would hurt the saffron party’s prospects.
The saffron party leaders believe that if Naidu succeeds in his endeavour to strike a three-party alliance, it would sound a death knell for their party, which is showing signs of growth across the state, if the results of the recent Lok Sabha elections are any indication.
The BJP won eight Lok Sabha seats, a remarkable achievement considering its presence on Telangana soil.
The BJP leaders believe that the immediate threat for them would be the party’s national leadership asking them to have an alliance with TDP and Jana Sena for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections.
The BJP has a good presence in the GHMC area and if Naidu throws his oar in, it would be like nipping the lotus that is just blooming at the bud.
A senior leader of the BJP said: “If the BJP has an alliance with the TDP, the BRS would have a powerful weapon in its hand to target our party. It would accuse us of hobnobbing with the TDP, which is considered an enemy to Telangana interests. The alliance would have an adverse fallout on the next Assembly elections too, at a time when the party is scripting strategies to capture power in the state.”
In the 2020 GHMC elections, the BJP won 47 divisions, which was in striking distance to the BRS that had netted 56 seats. The AIMIM secured 44 seats while Congress had bagged three seats. For the BJP, the rise was meteoric as it had won only four seats in the 2016 elections.
The saffron party leaders believe that if Naidu strikes an alliance with the BJP, it would only benefit the BRS and AIMIM.
The BJP’s vote share rose to 35 per cent in the recent Lok Sabha elections from 13.9 percent in the Assembly polls in November-December, last year.
