TD-JS-BJP Alliance Seeks Role of Top BJP Leaders to Boost Poll Campaign
Vijayawada: The three-party alliance expects top BJP leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J.P. Nadda to come and boost its poll campaign in Andhra Pradesh. Their presence is favoured a few days before May 13, the polling day.
The leaders from the TD-JS-BJP are working out strategies to woo the voters by explaining to them the need for the three-party alliance to oust the YSRC from power and also listing the benefits that the people could get if the alliance wins power.
“We are trying to persuade the BJP brass from Delhi to come and announce their support to develop Amaravati as the capital city, sanction of funds for completion of the Polavaram project, sanction of Visakha railway zone and grant of special category status, also a guarantee against privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.
The BJP top leaders are likely to attend public meetings in Visakhapatnam, Rajamahendravaram and Tirupati.
BJP leaders say that though the Prime Minister was urged to attend the public meeting at Boppudi on March 17, “we failed to get any public announcements from him on any major issues pertaining to AP.”
Had the PM made any major announcement on that day as regards central help to AP, it could have helped the alliance parties to forge ahead with the poll campaign.
At present, Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan are taking up the poll campaign independently in the name of Prajagalam phase-2 and ‘Varahi Vijayabheri’ respectively.
Naidu had covered parts of Rayalaseema and is visiting erstwhile Godavari districts while Pawan Kalyan recently kicked off his campaign from Pithapuram, from where he is contesting the Assembly polls.
The state BJP will be launching its poll campaign, led by party chief Daggubati Purandeswari, from the Rajahmundry Lok Sabha segment, from where she is contesting, on Friday.
The leaders of the three parties are assuring the dissidents that they would get better positions either in the party or in the government once their alliance wins power. Yet, several ‘disappointed’ leaders are quitting these parties and switching loyalty to other parties.
Analysts feel this exercise will go on until the day of withdrawal of nominations. As of now, there is every chance the sidelined aspirants can end up as the party candidates if they can prove their chances of a win.
Analysts attribute credit to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for announcing the party nominees for Assembly and Parliament polls much ahead of other parties and starting the poll campaign at the very outset.
