Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman election: BJP trying to find new friends
The BJP leaders had discussions with the AIADMK leadership seeking their support.
Hyderabad: The election for the position of the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, which is likely to be a close contest between the NDA led by the BJP and the UPA led by the Congress, will force the hand of three major Telugu regional parties, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), the Telugu Desam (TD) and the YSR Congress (YSRC) into revealing which of the two national coalitions they would eventually side with.
However, since neither the BJP nor the Congress have a majority, they have started the exercise of consulting other parties to get their support. The BJP leaders had discussions with the AIADMK leadership seeking their support.
In the two Telugu states, the issue becomes interesting as all the parties – the TRS, TD and YSRC – are opposing both BJP and the Congress in public. Between them, the three Telugu parties have 14 of the 18 members in the Rajya Sabha (TRS: 6, TD: 6, YSRC: 2), where the Congress has 3 and BJP a lone member.
The BJP, after losing the TD and Shiv Sena as allies of the NDA in recent months, is trying to get some new friends. The BJP national leadership may ask TRS and YSRC for their support in these elections and set a precursor to the 2019 elections.
The TRS chief and Chief Minister of Telangana, K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) has expressed his interest in floating a new front, which would be both anti-BJP and anti-Congress.
He recently met and discussed the federal front with Trinamul Congress chief and Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, who, however, is likely to support the UPA candidate in the elections for the Deputy Chairman of the RS.
Mr Rao is unlikely to support the UPA candidate hea-ded by the Congress because it is his principal rival in his state. But whether he would support the NDA candidate headed by the BJP is yet to be known. Senior TRS leaders say the party leader would take a decision at the time of election.
For the TD in Andhra Pradesh, Congress is main political enemy and owes its genesis to anti-Congressism. However, after the bifurcation of AP, the Congress has lost its relevance and ceases to be a force in any sense, and therefore poses no threat to the Telugu Desam.
There are speculations in political circles that the meeting of Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan with AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday at Vijayawada was reconcile the two parties and bring back the TD to the BJP camp.
Sources revealed that Naidu told the Governor that the Central government should grant special category status to AP and implement all assurances given to the state at the time of bifurcation before any reconciliation is possible. The Gover-nor reportedly advised Naidu that it is not in the best interests of the people to go against the Centre.
There are speculations that the YSRC has a secret pact with the BJP, though they deny it in public.
The three Telugu parties will not likely reveal their decision till the time of the election, but it has created great interest in political circles because the decision would likely indicate the direction for 2019 elections.