The other day, Telugu Desam Party politburo led by party president N Chandrababu Naidu took a decision not to field a candidate in the by-elections from Badvel assembly constituency in Kadapa district.
The reason cited by the TDP is that it wanted to uphold the tradition of not to field any candidate in the by-election in any constituency, if the spouse of the deceased MLA contests the elections. Jana Sena Party led by Pawan Kalyan, too, took the same decision on the same pretext.
Yet, it is not going to be a unanimous election for YSR Congress party candidate Dasari Sudha, wife of deceased MLA G Venkata Subbaiah, in Badvel, as both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress party have decided to field their candidates, apart from a few independents.
Despite the decision of Pawan Kalyan to field a candidate on behalf of Jana Sena in Badvel, his alliance partner BJP decided to go ahead with the contest indicating that all is not well between the alliance partners.
BJP Andhra Pradesh unit president Somu Veerraju announced the candidature of BJP Yuva Morcha leader Panathala Suresh.
Interestingly, the party high command entrusted the campaigning responsibilities in Badvel to Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh and former state minister C Adinarayana Reddy.
This led to the talk that thought the TDP has opted out of the contest, it might be discreetly supporting the BJP candidate in the by-poll.
Reason is that both C M Ramesh and Adinarayana Reddy were originally from the TDP and have a lot of support within the TDP cadre in Kadapa district.
Though Somu Veerraju says the BJP will invite Pawan Kalyan to campaign for the party candidate, the latter might not accept the same as a matter of principle. So, the BJP leadership is trying to get the support of the TDP cadres.
That is why, the party entrusted the campaigning responsibility to the former TDP leaders. Naidu, too, might not extend support to the BJP candidates openly, but he might ask the local leaders to discreetly cooperate with the saffron party, sources said.