Khammam: By all accounts, the alliance between the Telugu Desam and the BJP in TS has ended for good.
It is not just the fact that the two parties have decided to contest elections to the Khammam and Warangal Municipal corporations on their own, but also the posturing by the leaders of these “allies”.
Leaders of these two parties have been going about declaring candidates for various divisions on their own, as if they are not constituents of the NDA at the Centre.
While the BJP plans to contest 25 of the 50 divisions in the Khammam Municipal Corporation on its own, it has not made any attempt to strike a pact with any other party, including the TD.
BJP has so far announced the names of 15 candidates, even as the TD is rumoured to reach an understanding with the Congress in these elections.
TD leaders are believed to have discussed the matter with DCC president A. Satyam.
In Warangal too, the BJP decided to go it alone in the election. The local leaders have made it clear that they have the blessings of the party’s senior leaders in Hyderabad.
BJP MLC Ramachandra Rao, who addressed the party cadre, had earlier taken the opinion of the local leaders in Warangal.
The BJP had made it clear that it would give importance to the opinion of the party’s local leaders in the civic body polls. Accordingly, many local leaders, including former MLA Vannala Sriramulu, had vehemently opposed any pact with the TD.
The BJP plans to contest all the 58 divisions in the Warangal Municipal Corporation and it had not consulted with the TD at any stage.
The party hopes to win some divisions and is pinning its hopes on the villages of Hasanparthy mandal that had been merged in the Corporation limits.
Meanwhile, sources in the Telugu Desam said that the chance of an alliance between the BJP and the TD in TS in the near future appear bleak. “The present elections are a proof,” the source said.
