Bharatiya Janata Party has burnt its fingers in Andhra Pradesh by joining hands with the Telugu Desam Party in 2014 and continuing the friendship till it was dumped in 2018.
TDP president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu did not allow the BJP to grow as an independent at all in Andhra.
While Naidu could come to power in AP using Modi charisma in 2014, the BJP faced a miserable loss in 2019 elections because of its friendship with Naidu.
The BJP is now trying to gain some ground in the state and it is not so easy to build the organization when a powerful party like YSR Congress party is in power. What it has to do is to build the organization brick by brick and emerge as a powerful force.
For that, the BJP has to replace the TDP as an alternative to the YSRC. To achieve this, the party has to first decimate the TDP completely and take its position.
The BJP leadership has to break the finances and organizational network of the TDP and force the TDP leaders to defect to the BJP.
Instead of doing it, the BJP leaders in Andhra are building castles in air, boasting that they would come to power in Andhra in 2024.
They started attacking the Jagan Mohan Reddy government, questioning his moves and defending the decisions taken by the previous TDP government, whether it is construction of illegal structures on Krishna river bund, Amaravati capital or Polavaram tenders.
In the process, what the BJP leaders are forgetting that their actions would ultimately benefit the TDP. It was evident from the way the TDP leaders have come out of their depression and started attacking Jagan strongly. The BJP’s agitations boosted the morale of the TDP cadres.
Realising this, the BJP leadership in Delhi is learnt to have pulled up the state leaders for targeting Jagan, instead of weakening the TDP.
It reportedly pointed out that not a single TDP MLA could join the BJP in the last three months, as boasted by some party leaders.
“Let us be friendly with the YSRC for now and our prime target is the TDP. Only if the TDP disappears, the BJP will have any chance to emerge as a potential opposition party,” BJP central leadership is learnt to have told the state leadrs.