Strange are the ways of Telugu Desam Party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu. Known for taking frequent U-turns to suit his political interests, Naidu is back to his same old game.
The TDP chief, who forged an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014 to cash in on the charisma of Narendra Modi and came to power in the state assembly elections, broke this alliance in 2018 after he was pushed to corner by the YSR Congress party on special category status issue.
He joined hands with the Congress and other anti-BJP parties before 2019 elections and tried to stitch up a grand alliance, but the attempt backfired.
The Narendra Modi-led BJP came back to power at the Centre with a huge majority for the second successive term.
Naidu paid penalty for his wrong strategy by losing power to the YSR Congress party led by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy with a huge margin in the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh.
Subsequently, Naidu expressed regrets for severing ties with the BJP and has since been making every effort to get back into the NDA fold.
He has been pampering Narendra Modi by writing letters frequently and praising his leadership, but the BJP has refused to fall into his wily game and kept him at bay.
Still, Naidu has not given up his attempts. All these days, he is of the firm view that the TDP has chances of coming to power only if it joins hands with the BJP-Jana Sena combine.
He is afraid that if Pawan Kalyan’s community splits the opposition votes, the TDP would lose heavily in the next elections.
But, of late, Naidu appears to have suddenly changed his strategy.
He is learnt to have instructed his party leaders and cadre to take part in the agitations against the alleged anti-people policies of the Narendra Modi government, including rising prices of LPG cylinders, farm laws etc.
On Friday, the TDP cadre took part in the rally conducted by the Communist Party of India at Tirupati in protest against the anti-people policies of the Modi government at the Centre.
The TDP leaders joined the CPI leaders in the padayatra, led by CPI state secretary K Ramakrishna, who accused Modi of mortgaging the government assets to Adanis and Ambanis.
TDP leader G Narasimha Yadav, who is the in-charge of party for Tirupati parliamentary constituency, and TDP corporator Muni Krishna, lashed out at the Centre for selling the public sector undertakings for a song.
This made one wonder whether Naidu has taken yet another U-turn on the alliance with the BJP. Apparently, the TDP chief has realised that the BJP was not interested in accepting the friendly gestures of the TDP and what is more, the BJP leaders were making humiliating comments against the TDP.
That is perhaps why Naidu has decided to return to his anti-Modi stand and join hands with the Communists to fight against the Centre.