‘Alliance With TDP Was A Blunder’

BJP national secretary Y. Satya Kumar said the party’s alliance with the TDP in 1999 Asembly polls was a historical blunder but did not rule out tie-up with the same party in the 2024 elections. He said that it was too early to decide on the political alliances of the party now. Currently, we are in an alliance with the Jana Sena, he said.

Political analysts said the BJP might be of the opinion that it could have benefited more had it gone to the elections alone in 1999 because there was an opinion that the TDP could have faced defeat if it did not tie up with the BJP, at that time. 

However, the BJP still had alliance with the TDP in the 2014 elections and when  asked about the same, Satya Kumar said that it was due to political compulsion. 

“In 2014, we had an alliance with the TDP as Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated unscientifically by the Congress government. The BJP wanted to protect the interests of the state and we tied up with the TDP.”

The BJP implemented 80 per cent of the provisions in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act, he claimed.

The BJP established several national educational institutions in the state and even agreed to bear the entire cost of Polavaram project, unlike the 90:10 ratio. It was the Modi government which decided to merge seven affected mandals of Telangana with Andhra Pradesh, he said.

YCP hijacked central schemes

Satya Kumar slammed the YCP government for hijacking all the welfare schemes and projecting them as those implemented by the state. He said that as many as 14 lakh students were registered for the Samagra Shiksha Yojana to take scholarships from the state. 

More than half of the funds for this scheme are borne by the Centre but the state government has renamed it as Jagananna Vidya Deevena to create an impression that the state government is funding it. Similarly, under the National Health Scheme, the Government of India pays for construction and renovation of thousands of Primary Health Centres, 104, 108 services, salaries for the staff connected with the schemes but the YCP government is claiming them to be state projects. 

The Centre bears anything between 60-90 per cent of the funds for 

PM Awas Yojana, PM Grameen Sadak Yojana, National Health Mission and others but Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name is not being prefixed anywhere. In Andhra Pradesh, all welfare schemes are named after either Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy or his father late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. 

The aim of all the schemes implemented by the Centre is to improve the standards and quality of life of the poor across the country, he said. 

The BJP leader said that they would create about the hijacking of the schemes and also expose the failures of the state government.

BJP vote share

Speaking about the vote share of their party, he said it never went below 3 per cent. In 1983, our party got 4 seats despite NTR wave. In 1989 too, we got four seats when we had an alliance with the TDP.  At that time, the TDP was a sinking ship and we too lost the elections. 

In 1998 general elections, the BJP contested the elections on its own and got 4 MP seats and 19 per cent of vote share, he explained.

The BJP national secretary said that their party was focused on strengthening the party’s base in the state by adopting a multi-pronged strategy. The party would be made self-sustainable at the mandal and booth levels, he added.