After TRS, YSR Congress to back BJP in prez poll

YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy conveyed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that his party will back the BJP’s candidate in the upcoming presidential elections.

“We will support any candidate the BJP fields as we have very less differences. Except for differences on the land acquisition bill and special status for Andhra Pradesh, we share similar opinions on various issues which we think are pro people,” Jagan said, after his meeting with Modi.

Jagan said it will be pointless to oppose the NDA candidate, as “the BJP has enough support for its candidate to win”. The support from parties out of the NDA fold – first by the TRS and now by the YSR Congress – will help the BJP to narrow its shortfall of 20,000 value votes to install its candidate in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The YSR Congress has nine MPs in the Lok Sabha, eight from Andhra Pradesh (AP) and one from Telangana. The YSR Congress is the lone Opposition party, having won 67 of the 175 seats in AP.  But, 14 of its MLAs have switched sides to the ruling TDP since the 2014 Assembly polls.

The BJP till now has not formally started the process of selecting a panel of three candidates which would be vetted by the RSS. A BJP leader said that a meeting between the top leadership of the BJP and the RSS will take place some time later to decide on the presidential candidate.

After that, Modi and party chief Amit Shah will hold consultations with the NDA constituents to officially announce its candidate.