It is curtains down for Chandrababu Naidu's TDP in Telangana

The inevitable situation has finally arrived for the TDP in Telangana, precipitated at a time the party's influence in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh is at its lowest.

The once-formidable force in Telangana, the Telugu Desam Party is now left without any representation in the state legislature – the first time since its entry in 1983, when the regional party romped to power within a year of its formation by legendary actor N T Rama Rao.

The Telangana Telugu Desam legislature party is now formally merged with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti after the two TDP MLAs - Sandra Venkata Veeraiah (Sathupalli) and Mecha Nageswara Rao (Aswaraopeta) approached Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy on Wednesday seeking their inclusion as the ruling party members.

The decamp would not attract the anti-defection laws as the two MLAs constitute the whole legislative party, experts say.

And this is not the first time the TDP MLAs were merged with the TRS. In March 2016, 12 defected TDP MLAs were recognised as TRS members. Later, Revanth Reddy joined the Congress. Sandra and R Krishnaiah remained, maintaining the TDP presence officially during the previous Assembly.

However, since his re-election as a TDP MLA in December 2018, Sandra has been hobnobbing with the TRS, while his colleague Mecha steadfastly refused to ditch the party.

Mecha's change of mind now follows the TDP's dismal electoral performance in both the states last month. While Chandrababu Naidu's party was drubbed by the ruling YSRCP in the Panchayat and municipal polls in Andhra Pradesh, the Telangana unit chief L Ramana was relegated to the fringes in the Hyderabad-RangaReddy-Mahabubnagar graduate MLC elections.

“Since the bifurcation, TDP's role in Telangana has become nominal. The party, as evident from the recent results, has no future here,” Sandra tells DH.

Like the "turncoat" TDP legislators earlier, Sandra and Mecha maintained that their defection to the TRS is for their constituency development sake. Mecha was also reportedly promised a plum post by KCR.

TDP: An “outsider” since 2014

Though the TDP's prospects weakened in the region with the creation of Telangana, where it is seen as an “Andhra party,” party chief Naidu's focused attention on Andhra Pradesh is said to have impaired the party here.

Naidu moved his base to Amaravati in 2015, when he was the chief minister, a shift, analysts say, was hastened by the cash-for-vote episode during the Telangana MLC elections earlier that year. Sandra is one of the main accused in the scandal that has let KCR target Naidu politically and procedurally.

In the 2016 Hyderabad civic polls, despite Naidu's campaign claims of transforming the city into an IT hub, TDP could manage to win only one councillor out of 150 seats.

The TDP, which had won 15 seats in the 2014 elections in alliance with the BJP, was reduced to two in the 2018 polls when it went with the Congress and other parties.

The party's base has since then, ostensibly, eroded even in Khammam, an area adjoining Andhra Pradesh, where the two MLAs are from.

Meanwhile, in the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections, the TDP lost power, reduced to 23 MLAs in the 175-member Assembly. Though becoming a shadow of its former self, the TDP nevertheless appears unwilling to cede the Telangana ground totally.

“Some leaders or legislators leaving the party would not discourage us. We will remain in Telangana public and election sphere,” Telangana TDP chief Ramana told DH adding that they would contest the “merger” legally.

The party has put up Muvva Arun Kumar as its candidate for the 17 April Nagarjuna Sagar bypolls.