Naidu destroyed anti-Congress foundation of TDP: Shah

Debunking Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s protest in Delhi as “political opportunism”, BJP chief Amit Shah on Monday wrote an open letter to people of Andhra Pradesh reminding them that Naidu joined hands with Congress, which had dethroned TDP founder N T Rama Rao from CMship in 1984.

Accusing Naidu of “having destroyed the anti-Congress foundation” of his party and joining hands with Congress, which bifurcated the state in a “unilateral, hasty and unscientific manner, ignoring the interests of the state”, Shah said people of the state will teach a befitting lesson to him in the coming elections.

“People will always remember that Congress had dethroned former Chief Minister, N T Rama Rao in a most undemocratic manner in 1984. In his lust for power, the TDP leader has destroyed the very anti-Congress foundation on which the party was built by its founder, N T Rama Rao.

“Congress betrayed the people of Andhra Pradesh while dividing the state and now TDP leader wants to work for bringing back Congress to power. His actions smack of political opportunism,” Shah said hitting out at the erstwhile NDA ally, which walked out of the ruling alliance in March last year.

Shah's remarks amid the backdrop of BJP repeatedly invoking success of coalition politics practised by NDA's first Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and making pronounced attempts to the flag the divergence of politics of Congress and regional parties ahead of Lok Sabha polls in which many opinion polls have predicted a tough election for BJP.

Naidu, after walking out of NDA has been on whirlwind tour of the country to unite Opposition parties and said some months back that real Diwali will come only when NDA government makes an exit.

Shah called the fast of Naidu in Delhi, which saw a number of Opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal in attendance, “histrionics to mislead Andhra people”, listed the steps taken by Modi government for welfare and betterment of the state and accused him of making “patently false accusations” against Modi government.

In the letter addressing “My dear people of Andhra Pradesh” Shah alleged that Naidu has broken the trust of the people of Andhra Pradesh and declared “his delusional politics is about to end.”

“Naidu is back to theatrics and histrionics. His desperation for grabbing headlines is understandable as he is aware that his political fortunes are declining rapidly. Sensing defeat in the coming elections, he has made multiple U-turns and is carrying on a malicious propaganda against the Centre and BJP leadership to divert people’s attention from his failures,” Shah said.

The BJP chief also tried to make a big issue of Naidu not having gone to receive the Prime Minister when he went to Andhra Pradesh and he was going “too far by personally attacking” PM Modi.

He expressed confidence that enlightened and politically conscious people will see through Naidu’s “desperation to retain power and reminded that the Andhra Chief Minister had hailed the special package announced by the NDA government on the floor of the Assembly, in party meetings, public forums and press conferences.

While Naidu has now been repeatedly targeting the Centre over his demand for special category status for Andhra, the BJP chief reminded that Naidu, when he was with NDA, had even declared that Special Category Status was not a panacea and did not help states with such status to develop.