Hyderabad: BJP national president Amit Shah, who is to attend a party booth level workers meeting on May 25 in Vijayawada, will tell party leaders in Andhra Pradesh that they need to strengthen the party in the state and leave the issue of alliances to him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Siddarth Nath Singh, party in-charge for AP affairs and UP health minister, said on Thursday that Mr Shah will only tell party leaders in AP that they must grow the party in the state themselves, and will advise them on how this should be done, and will not speak on anything else.
After the meeting that YSR Congress president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy had with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Wednesday, speculation is rife about a possible tie-up between the two parties in the coming elections, which would mean discontinuing the alliance with the TD.
The Central Office sources, however, ruled out any announcements on alliances since elections are still two years away. Sources said that when a big delegation of state BJP leaders met Mr Shah some time back and complained that AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was completely ignoring the BJP, Mr Shah is said to have retorted: “If I was in the place of Chandrababu Naidu, I would have done the same thing. You cannot make such complaints. You should be more assertive in the state, and for this, first you must grow independently. You should be in a position to command the politics and should not be begging for posts.”
Mr Singh said that Mr Shah was supposed to address booth level workers last December, but booth level committees had not been constituted then, so Mr Shah said he would not come until at least 70 per cent of the committees were formed.
