BJP's alliance with Pawan Kalyan faces Tirupati test in Andhra Pradesh

The recent electoral victories of its Telangana counterpart has spurred the Andhra Pradesh BJP into drawing a game plan for its growth in a state where it has no Assembly or Lok Sabha representation at present.

It also lacks a party like AIMIM here, to find big traction for its Hindutva rhetoric like during the Hyderabad polls, though the Andhra BJP constantly accuses Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy's actions as being anti-Hindu and appeasing the Muslim, Christian minorities.

Speaking at the party's state executive meeting in Tirupati on Saturday, Union minister and Andhra in-charge V Muraleedharan extolled the BJP unit for “attacking Reddy's inefficient rule, agitating on various public issues, and playing the Opposition party's role.”

However, unlike in Telangana where the saffron party's electoral prospects are bolstered by the Congress unit vitiated by internal squabbling and desertions to the TRS; BJP faces an uphill task in even achieving the “BJP is the alternative in AP” public notion.

For the Opposition TDP retains a big influence – organisation, popularity and vote share basis, though it was trounced in the 2019 polls, restricted to 23 MLAs in a 175 member Assembly.

The YSRCP has 151 MLAs and is firmly seated in power, Jana Sena Party 1; while the BJP which had four MLAs when it contested alongside the TDP and JSP support in 2014, has drawn a blank in May 2019. Thanks to its refusal to confer the special category status for the truncated state, the BJP also failed to retain its two Lok Sabha seats despite a nationwide Narendra Modi wave.

The party's vote share was less than 1%, even below the NOTA percentage. So, in January this year, the BJP announced a partnership with Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena Party (JSP).

The film-star turned politician's party had won only one Assembly constituency in 2019. PK, as he is popularly known, himself lost from the two Assembly seats he contested. But the JSP displayed the electoral benefits its friendship brings by grabbing a 7% vote share. “BJP and JSP are working together with a nationalistic spirit to jointly form a government in the state,” AP BJP chief Somu Veerraju says.

However, the BJP right now is engaged in dealing with a challenge posed out of this friendship with PK. The JSP is keen on contesting from the Tirupati Lok Sabha constituency, which the BJP wants for itself to move ahead in the state.

The seat fell vacant because of the death of YSRCP MP Balli Durga Prasad in September and would go to by-polls soon. TDP, which stood second here, has already announced its candidate.

“Our central leadership in consultation with the state unit and JSP would take the appropriate decision,” says Vishnu Vardhan Reddy, general secretary, AP BJP, when questioned if the BJP is willing to let go of the seat in the spirit of alliance.

The BJP is predicting a gradual political decline of its former ally Chandrababu Naidu, which it believes would allow the Opposition space it needs to grow in the state.

“Not even half of his party MLAs are seen standing beside him in the assembly confrontations with the ruling side or in the party's public protests against the YSRCP government,” Vishnu Vardhan tells DH.