The AP unit of the BJP is planning to contest 20 Assembly seats in the coming general election. The party is serious about these 20 seats where the party wants to have them if there would be any alliance.
The party would contest all the 175 Assembly seats. But will focus more on these 20 seats, a senior leader of the party said. He further said that the party had sent a report to the party national leadership suggesting that the party take these 20 seats if there is any alliance.
The state leadership proposed four seats in Guntur district, three in East Godavari district, two each in Krishna, Nellore, West Godavari and Chittoor, one each in Kadapa, Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Prakasam and Anantapur districts.
The party leadership in the state is serious on going for alliance with the TDP. A good number of the leaders led by its president Daggubati Purandheswari are in favour of having electoral tie-up in the state with the TDP. They are very sympathetic to the TDP, and they speak whatever the TDP speaks.
However, the party’s national leadership is giving different voices. The party had not decided yet on the alliance. TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu went to Delhi and held talks with BJP senior leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. It was about the party alliance but none of the leaders spoke about what went on between the two leaders.
Sources say that Amit Shah had asked for 35 Assembly seats and five Parliament seats in alliance with the TDP. Shah had reportedly told Chandrababu Naidu that the TDP should be prepared to give these seats to the BJP if they wanted the alliance to go.
While welcoming Chandrababu Naidu into the NDA, Amit Shah wanted the TDP leadership to be prepared for sacrifices. The TDP has to make up its mind to give those many seats to the BJP and it is to be seen if the TDP would give them for the tie-up.
Meanwhile, BJP State unit vice-president S Vishnuvardhan Reddy said that the Congress leaders have borrowed a failure leader from Telangana to head their AP unit. He said that the party had no eligible leaders in Andhra Pradesh to head the party. He wanted the APCC to make an appeal to the Telangana Congress leadership to withdraw the cases filed against sharing of the Krishna and Godavari river waters with Andhra Pradesh.
