Naidu doesn't think that Modi will hamper TDP's chance this time

The return of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Chandrababu Naidu to the BJP-led NDA alliance, a decade after partying ways, does not come as a surprise. Recent opinion polls have suggested that if the TDP were to return to the NDA it would boost the chances of the alliance both in Telangana and Seemandhra. The confidence exuberated by leaders of both the BJP and the TDP on Sunday, when the tie-up was announced, reflected this. However, many would say that this deal will not be a game changer in the two would-be states. The BJP will be contesting 13 Lok Sabha seats and 62 assembly seats from undivided Andhra Pradesh, though the final plan is yet to be chalked out.
Mr Naidu is no longer the ‘hi-tech’, reformer chief minister he once was. The 1999 Time ‘South Asian of the Year’, who had the United States president and the British PM as guests to witness the IT revolution in Hyderabad, has been out of power for a decade and a lot has changed during this time. The Congress, which routed the TDP in 2004, may be a pale shadow of what it was, but other parties have moved into that political space. The K Chandrashekar Rao-led TRS and the Jaganmohan Reddy-led YSR Congress have gained where the two national parties and the TDP have lost. The alliance has also seen discontent within the TDP and in the state BJP unit — TDP members staged a protest outside Mr Naidu’s house and the BJP’s Telangana and Seemandhra unit chiefs were not present during the Sunday announcement. Mr Naidu, in an interview in November 2004, might have blamed the TDP’s poll debacle in the state on its alliance with the BJP — he even attributed the communal riots in Gujarat to have negatively impacted the TDP’s chances — but today political necessities have forced him to sing a different tune.
The TDP-BJP alliance is symbiotic in many ways: It gives the BJP an important ally in the southern state and the TDP a presence at the Centre, if an NDA government comes to power.

Pre-poll alliance: BJP and Congress should go it alone

Narendra Modi (left) and Rahul Gandhi

The experience has not been encouraging. Coalition governments that have been around since the 1990s have not really brought the representative democracy or stability that people had hoped for. The Congress’ waning presence in different states and the BJP failing to become a pan-India party have given regional parties more political space in New Delhi. Pulled in opposite directions by coalition partners, the principal party — either the Congress or the BJP — has not been able to live up to the expectations of the people. In this scenario, it would be prudent for the two national parties to not enter into pre-poll alliances with regional parties and rather contest the maximum number of seats in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Ram Vilas Paswan with his son

In that vein, it is not good news that the BJP might strike an alliance with the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, much against the will of the local party unit. Pre-poll alliances with regional heavyweights are safer bets for the national parties. But by doing so they are reducing their chances of reaching the half-way mark of 272 seats on their own. They are also opening the field for regional parties to have a greater clout at the Centre in a coalition government. This clout or bargaining power often works against the stability of a government. A sign of this is seen in KT Rama Rao’s statement that his party, the TRS, was under “no compulsion to either merge or ink a pre-poll pact with the Congress” and LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan aligning with the BJP but keeping his ‘options open’. Regional parties seldom view issues through the prism of national importance, as was seen when TMC leader Mamata Banerjee scuttled the Teesta water-sharing agreement and when the DMK walked out of the UPA over the Lankan Tamil issue.

KT Rama Rao

If there is one lesson that can be learnt from the UPA 1 and UPA 2 governments, it is that the greater the presence of regional parties in a coalition at the Centre, the greater the chances of a gridlocked, dysfunctional government. Thus for increasing the chances of a stable government at the Centre, it is important that the national parties go it alone at the hustings. If the national parties fail to learn from past mistakes the 16th Lok Sabha will also succumb to ‘coalition compulsions’ and have an amorphous existence.