The suspense over the BJP joining the TDP-Jana Sena Party (JSP) alliance is likely to end soon as the BJP’s top brass invited TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena Party (JSP) president Pawan Kalyan for discussions in New Delhi on Thursday night. Both leaders got invitations from the BJP leaders to come for discussions in order to reach an understanding at the earliest. The BJP earlier proposed the TDP’s re-entry into the NDA, which will be the crux of the whole episode while the JSP claimed to be a part of the BJP-led ruling coalition.
It is pertinent to mention that the JSP political affairs committee chairman Nadendla Manohar expressed confidence at a press conference on Thursday morning that the BJP would join the alliance and Mr. Kalyan had been making efforts towards that notwithstanding his party’s tie-up with the TDP.
Obviously, the BJP is under pressure to act quickly as the election notification is expected to be issued sometime later this month. All this is against the backdrop of the announcement of the first list of candidates by the TDP and the JSP on February 24. The TDP had declared the names of candidates for 94 Assembly Constituencies (ACs) while the JSP announced the names of candidates for five out of 24 constituencies in addition to three Lok Sabha (LS) seats which it intends to contest. How their next list of candidates is going to shape up essentially depends on the likelihood of the BJP making it a tripartite alliance.
Mr. Kalyan had said that he had settled for 24 constituencies to accommodate the BJP, which was a clear indication that the BJP is in favour of joining the alliance and it was just a matter of time. He has maintained that the purpose of the alliance is to consolidate the anti-YSRCP votes. It is with that goal the TDP-JSP alliance moved ahead and wanted the BJP to come onboard in public interest.
