Hyderabad: In her attempt to stitch up a non-BJP coalition, Trinamul president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is bringing pressure on the Congress and TD leaderships to forge a grand alliance and rope in the Left parties in the two Telugu states to defeat the BJP. It is said Mrs Gandhi was amenable to the suggestion.
Ms Banerjee is also said to be pressurising Mr Naidu to enter into an alliance with the Congress without showing any ego to defeat the the BJP, the “common enemy”.
Sources said that it was on the advice of Ms Banerjee that Mr Naidu decided to attend the swearing in of JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy as Karnataka Chief Minister recently at Bengaluru. Mr Naidu shared the dais with Mrs Gandhi and AICC president Rahul Gandhi.
The Telugu Desam was formed by the late N.T. Rama Rao as an anti-Congress party. Despite this, NTR himself tried to have an alliance with the Congress, according a book written by former Union minister and close NTR associate, the late P. Upendra.
After the 1994 episode when Mr Naidu became Chief Minister, NTR sent a proposal to then Congress president and Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao that his faction of the TD and the Congress have alliance. NTR proposed that his TD group would leave all Lok Sabha seats to the Congress in AP, and he should get all the Assembly seats, Upendra wrote. This proposal was not accepted by the Congress.
The situation may be different now, but it shows how parties can come together according to the political scenario, said a senior Congress leader.
Ms Banerjee has also advised Mr Naidu to keep in touch with the Left parties for an alliance. According to Ms Banerjee, a TD-Congress-Left alliance will benefit the Congress in Telangana state and the TD in AP.
According to sources, Ms Banerjee has received information that the YSRC is moving close to the BJP. The grand alliance is a must to win more Lok Sabha seats in AP and in TS, Ms Banerjee feels.
