Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is likely to emerge as the front runner for the post of convenor of the proposed grand alliance at the national level to pull down the Bharatiya Janata Party from power at the Centre in the coming elections.
According to sources in Delhi, the proposal to make Naidu as the convenor was mooted by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar and it was supported by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M K Stalin and National Conference president Farooq Abdulla. Even Congress president Rahul Gandhi gave his approval for the same.
Naidu has been taking the initiative to bring all the anti-BJP parties together to form a grand alliance. So far, 13 parties have responded positively and attended the meeting convened in New Delhi on December 10. All of them have appreciated the initiative taken by Naidu.
Apparently, the alliance leaders have observed that it was time for all of them to come together and form a common platform, rather than making last minute arrangements for the alliance.
“If there is no common structure for the alliance, there is every possibility that the regional parties would take their own stand and might tilt towards the BJP for their political interests. We should not allow it to happen,” Pawar said.
Since there is no common group and no leader to coordinate all of them, they felt that Naidu should take the initiative in this regard.
However, the major stumbling blocks for the alliance are: Trinamul Congress president and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, who are not willing to accept Rahul Gandhi as their leader.
It is learnt Naidu is trying to convince them that the first objective is to defeat the BJP and the prime ministerial candidate could be decided later, depending on the poll outcome.
He is suggesting that the regional parties could contest in maximum number of seats in their respective states, but finally there should be a common thread that would stitch them together, if they have to defeat the BJP.