The sudden phone call from Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah to Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu after the TD parliamentary party meeting surprised everybody.
In his five-minute telephonic interaction with Naidu, Shah invited him to come to Delhi for negotiations to resolve contentious issues including special status raised by ruling TDP.
This was surprising because it was only the previous day that Shah had allegedly spoke harshly with TDP MP K Rammohan Naidu who submitted a list with 19 pending issues to be resolved.
Naidu decided to send a party delegation headed by union minister of state for Science and technology Sujana Chowdary to New Delhi and hold talks with the centre. However, he said the party MPs would continue the agitation till the demands are conceded.
Why did Amit Shah come down from his stubborn stand?
According to party sources, the Centre has got the intelligence reports that the TDP is likely to join hands with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and other southern parties to build up a southern regional front which would later be expanded to the national level by garnering support from other regional parties like BJD, JD (U), BSP, TMC and others.
The Centre has also taken note of Naidu’s plan to write letters to all other NDA allies explaining injustice to Andhra Pradesh.
The spirit of the letter is going to be: “If BJP can do with the TDP like this, it can do with any other NDA allies in future. So, we shall come together to get our demands conceded.”
Sensing trouble, the BJP reacted and asked Naidu to come for negotiations. If the Centre concedes majority of the demands now, the TDP will have no excuses to fight. The alliance issue could be sorted out before the elections, say the BJP sources.
