Amaravati: Telugu Desam Party, despite being a regional outfit, played a crucial role in national politics and forming government at the Centre several times, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said on Friday.
Addressing the TDP MPs, MLAs and MLCs meeting, he said, "Even though we are a regional party, we played crucial roles in national politics. We were in the main position at one point of time and we formed the National Front and United Front and contributed to form governments at the Centre."
He further said without expecting any posts, the TDP earlier supported former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government for six years. Naidu said it was Janasena chief Pawan Kalyan, who first approached him before the Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls for an alliance with the TDP. The actor-politician did not want to allow the votes to split among opposition parties. The BJP approached the TDP later requesting them to join the NDA, he said.
Attacking the previous YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government, Naidu said the state has a debt of Rs 10.5 lakh crore.
He said due to the helping hand extended by the Centre, the state was able to cope otherwise the situation would have been bad.
Naidu requested his party MLAs not to repeat the same "mistakes" committed by the YSRCP leaders during the previous regime and asserted that the leaders should not involve themselves in the liquor trade unless it is their family business. "All of us have to have some discipline in this," he said.
Explaining the BJP's growth in the country, Naidu said, by sitting for five hours, Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a meeting of NDA Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers in Chandigarh on Thursday, sent a message that he was ready for the upcoming elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
