The Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Jana Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will together contest the upcoming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh. The announcement was made reportedly via a tele-conference with TDP leaders by TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday, March 9.
The announcement was made following talks between Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan, and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu. The former chief minister told TDP leaders that during the last five years, the YSR Congress government made the state bankrupt and to come out of this situation, the state needs the Union government’s support.
Naidu explained that keeping the state's interests in mind, the TDP decided to have seat-sharing with the Jana Sena and BJP. He added that there is clarity on seat-sharing but the seats will be finalised after another round of talks.
The TDP and Jana Sena had last month announced their seat-sharing agreement. The TDP has left 24 out of 175 Assembly and three out of 25 Lok Sabha seats for Jana Sena. The TDP has also announced its first list of 94 candidates while Jana Sena released the list of five candidates.
While the official announcement is to come through, the BJP is expected to contest from five Lok Sabha seats and six Assembly seats. Meanwhile, TDP leader Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar said seats will be decided on the basis of strengths of the parties.
Jana Sena, which is part of BJP-led NDA, announced alliance with the TDP in September last year. Chandrababu Naidu had met Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda in Delhi on February 7 to discuss the alliance.
TDP, which had snapped ties with the BJP in 2018 over the denial of special category status to Andhra Pradesh, evinced interest in reviving the alliance after suffering crushing defeat in 2019 elections. However, the BJP didn’t seem keen on allying with the TDP as the Jagan government had maintained friendly ties with the Union government and extended support to it in the Parliament in passing several key bills.