It has been an open secret that Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has been cosying up with the Congress party for quite some time, ever since his party came out of the National Democratic Alliance headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
But his party leaders have been saying that the TDP would go it alone in the Andhra Pradesh elections and the TDP’s friendly talks with the Congress were only confined to building an alternative to the BJP at the national level.
However, after the TDP joined hands with the Congress party in Telangana to form Maha Kootami (grand alliance), it is all the more clear that there is much more between the two than mere friendship.
And after Naidu went all the way to the residence of Congress president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Thursday, it is pretty clear that Naidu will be part of the UPA and he might have an alliance with the Congress even in Andhra Pradesh elections.
In fact, Naidu’s new-found friendship with the Congress is not being taken kindly by seniors within the TDP. Not long ago, senior party leader and Deputy Chief Minister K E Krishna Murthy announced that he was ready to “hang” himself if the TDP-Congress tie-up became a reality.
“There is no question of the TDP aligning with the Congress but if that happens, I am ready to hang myself,” he told a press conference in his hometown Kurnool in June.
He went on to add that he was speaking this “on behalf of the party” and it was not his individual view.
Now that the TDP openly joined the Congress camp, it will be interesting to watch what KE Krishna Murthy would do.