Hyderabad: Ahead of the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections scheduled in April, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Jana Sena Party (JSP) alliance has unveiled its first list of 118 candidates. The elections for the 175 assembly seats will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls.
TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu and JSP leader Pawan Kalyan jointly announced the names of their candidates, including 94 from the TDP, at a press conference held at Naidu’s residence in Undavalli near Amaravati Saturday.
The JSP, as the junior partner in the alliance, has been allocated 24 assembly seats, with five candidates announced now, and three Lok Sabha seats to contest in the general elections.
The announcement comes as the suspense over old ally Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) entry continues even as the two leaders came out with the first list Saturday “to declare it on an auspicious day, as per the Telugu Hindu calendar.”
Despite the uncertainty, Naidu said that “appropriate decisions could be taken as and when BJP’s association comes along.”
The party-wise allocation of the remaining 57 segments is expected to be announced after clarity emerges on the BJP’s way forward.
Though not an official ally, Chief Minister and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has been maintaining a friendly equation with the BJP, supporting the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government on various matters, including the passage of some crucial bills in Parliament.
Nevertheless, Union home minister Amit Shah met with old ally Naidu in New Delhi earlier this month. Though no official statement was made, leaders of both parties indicated to ThePrint that “re-alliance is on the cards.”
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Seat-sharing arrangement
Speaking Saturday after reading out the names of the TDP candidates, including his from Kuppam, Naidu termed it as “a historical day, the first step in a noble deed for AP’s resurgence.”
“More than the bifurcation, the state has suffered more under Jagan, who has ruined it in every way possible. Brand AP has been wrecked. For the well-being of five crore AP people, we two have decided to work together and everyone should operate with one agenda, keeping any differences and dissatisfactions aside,” said Naidu.
Both Naidu and Kalyan ended their short speeches with “Jai Telugu Desam-Jai Janasena slogans.”
The first list of 118 candidates comes at a time when Reddy has been announcing his candidates in phases, in the form of constituency-wise party in-charges. So far, around 60 names have been announced with some sitting YSRCP legislators dropped and some asked to move to other seats.
Out of 94 names in the TDP’s first list, 23 are newcomers. Incidentally, the party managed to win 23 seats only in 2019.
While Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh will be contesting from Mangalagiri, where he lost in 2019, Naidu’s brother-in-law and actor-politician Nandamuri Balakrishna will contest to retain Hindupur. YSRCP rebel MLA Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy is the TDP candidate from Nellore Rural.
Of the 94 names, 28 candidates are post-graduates, 50 are graduates, three are doctors, two have PhDs, and one is a former IAS officer.
TDP sources told ThePrint that the candidates were finalised after considering the crowdsourced feedback of over 1.03 crore people.
Coming to the JSP, five assembly candidate names (Nellimarla, Anakapalle, Rajanagaram, Kakinada Rural and Tenali) have been announced, including that of the party’s political committee chairman Nadendla Manohar from Tenali.
While the remaining 19 names are awaited, it is unknown where Kalyan will be in the fray this time.
Alliance with BJP
Earlier this week, Kalyan, officially a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally who has self-admittedly made intense efforts for the TDP-BJP re-alliance, while addressing his party workers at Bhimavaram in a lighter vein remarked that he was even “scolded by the BJP elders for his insistence on regrouping to defeat Jagan.”
On Saturday, with Naidu alongside, Kalyan said that “the alliance has the BJP’s best wishes.” “Keeping the BJP in view, I have given up some seats,” he remarked.
Kalyan added: “Instead of experimenting and demanding more seats, we have kept winnability as the criteria for the combine’s victory to end the arachaka palana (rule of anarchy).”
The JSP chief said that their aim was a 98 percent strike rate, ensuring no vote split. “In the larger public interest, there should be a successful vote transfer (between the parties), and every JSP leader who has made a sacrifice, worked hard for the alliance victory, will be rewarded once our government forms,” he added.
In the 2019 elections, the JSP had won only one assembly seat, with Kalyan himself losing in both constituencies he contested.
The TDP’s alliance with the BJP, bolstered by Modi’s popularity and Kalyan’s charisma (JSP did not contest then), had succeeded in the 2014 assembly polls. However, the separation of the parties in 2019 led to Jagan Mohan Reddy securing a stunning victory with 151 seats.
The YSRCP had then bagged 49.95 percent vote share, while the TDP, the JSP and the BJP secured 39.17 percent, around 6 percent and less than 1 percent, respectively.
The TDP-JSP alliance was forged at the Rajahmundry Central Jail in mid-September last year in a charged-up political atmosphere in Andhra Pradesh following former CM Chandrababu Naidu’s arrest by AP CID in the alleged skill development project scam.
Since the reunion, Naidu and Kalyan have been reiterating their resolve to fight unitedly to dislodge the incumbent Reddy from power.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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