As TDP sinks into despair, BJP steps on the gas in Andhra Pradesh

VISAKHAPATNAM: Even as the Telugu Desam Party has sunk into despair following the worst-ever drubbing handing out to it by the electorate in Andhra Pradesh since the party was founded by NT Rama Rao in 1982, the Bharatiya Janata Party is positioning itself as the alternative to the governing YSR Congress Party.
The BJP appears to have convinced itself that it can take the place of the principal opposition party in the state, despite not winning a single seat in the AP Vidhan Sabha.
"The response to our membership drive in Andhra Pradesh has been very encouraging. Many people told us that they are already tired of the YSRCP. Indeed more than 50% of the YSRCP’s legislators have expressed their unhappiness with the way the government is functioning. This indicates that the BJP is the main opposition party in the state," said Kasi Viswanatha Raju Sagi, state secretary of the BJP.
According to Sagi, a 27-year veteran of the BJP, many of the TDP’s legislators are in touch with the BJP, exploring the option of joining the party. However, according to a senior TDP leader, there is no way the disgruntled legislators from his party can join the BJP. "The BJP does not have a single MLA to give the malcontents among our MLAs the fig-leaf of joining the party if they break away in a significant number that will not attract the provisions of the anti-defection law, as happened with our party in the Rajya Sabha and the Congress Party in the Goa Vidhan Sabha. Such a move will be illegal. The malcontents will need to resign their seats in the Vidhan Sabha and contest the bye-elections on a BJP ticket. Few have the courage of facing the electorate again, after having won the election only in May," said a TDP leader, who declined to be identified.
Sagi claimed that many TDP workers were shifting their allegiance to the BJP. "They see the TDP as a spent-force. They do not want to join the Congress Party because it has become a moribund organisation. The only political option they see is the BJP," Sagi said.
Asked whether the Jagan Reddy administration’s recent policy of earmarking 75% of jobs in the private sector to "locals" was aimed at consolidating support for the YSRCP, Sagi said that the policy is unlikely to serve as the glue as envisaged by the governing party. "There is disillusionment with the government already because the economy has not been expanding to create jobs, though that has been the case when Chandrababu Naidu was chief minister," he said.
Other TDP leaders were not as sanguine about the party’s prospects. "The TDP is a cadre-based party. We are working at raising the spirit of the cadre, preparing in for the civic body elections which are due," says Shaik Abdul Rahman, president of the Visakhapatnam unit of the TDP.