Will TDP's rout provide a launchpad for BJP in Andhra?

YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s landslide victory in Andhra Pradesh with a majority of 151 out of 175 Assembly seats and 22 out of 25 Lok Sabha seats has undoubtedly handed the TDP a drubbing that it has not witnessed in its more than three decades of history. While the TDP won a mere 23 Assembly seats and three Lok Sabha seats, it has manged to capture 39.18% against the YSRCP’s 49.5% vote share. While the TDP’s debacle is seen as nothing less than a decimation, the two national parties, BJP and Congress, while failing to capture a single seat in both the Assembly and the Lok Sabha had a drought-like performance in vote share as well. While NOTA with a 1.5% vote share outnumbered the BJP, which got 0.95%, and the Congress, which got 1.29% for the Lok Sabha seats, both national parties performed equally badly in the Assembly as well, with the BJP getting a mere 0.84% vote share and Congress 1.17% while NOTA managing to get 1.28%. Political analysts feel that the YSRCP’s triumph has become an obvious threat to the existence of the TDP, while believing the same also provides certain political opportunities to the two national parties. Narendra Modi’s BJP, which had allied with the TDP in 2014, had bagged two MP seats and four MLA seats as part of the coalition. The BJP’s poor performance this time with its allies turning into rivals raises doubts if the party can survive in the Andhra political landscape without an ally. However, the BJP is confident and says that it is already in contact with second rung leaders of the TDP. Speaking to TNM, BJP spokesperson J Shyam Kishore says, “In AP, people voted with an ultimate aim of unseating the corrupt Chandrababu Naidu government. It is in that wave that even we didn’t get great numbers. However, we are hopeful of emerging as an alternative to the YSRCP.” “Several second rung leaders of the TDP at the ground level are welcoming us and showing interest to join us. We will soon chalk out a plan and strategy to go ahead,” he adds. Senior journalist Gali Nagaraja agrees. “If the BJP is able to attract the TDP second rung and leaders who are disillusioned with the leadership, then it can take on the YSRCP,” he says. Noting that the TDP could see the same downward trajectory which the Congress is seeing in Telangana, he added that the vacuum created by the TDP’s possible exodus will give space for the BJP to launch itself. Observers also say that though there is scope for the BJP in the state, they opine that there is no “specific communal focal point” as the state is known for caste-based polarisation over that based on religion. However, it’s also said that deploying tactics that the BJP did in Uttar Pradesh can help it to consolidate “ignored” and “aspiring” communities, and also tap into the sentiments of the Uttarandhra and Rayalaseema people who claim that they have been ignored for decades by successive state governments. Dr Jilukara Srinivas, author and Bahujan scholar, observed that the BJP needs a new enemy to position itself in the state, saying, “In the current scenario, there is no social and religious situation that can give the BJP an enemy. Another point is that there is no independent minority politics in Andhra.” While not granting Special Category Status (SCS) to Andhra Pradesh may have hurt the chances of the state unit of the BJP, the next five years and how the relationship between Jagan and Modi pans out will play a crucial role in the way the party is perceived. On the other hand, the Congress’s poor show is being attributed to the national phenomenon that the grand old party witnessed. “Congress saw the scene in the state which it saw across the country, but it failed to have proper alliances. At the national level Naidu was part of the Congress platform, but when it came to Andhra the Congress apparently could not convince him to have an alliance at the state level,” Nagaraja Gali says. Either way, all this is only in the long run. For now, many continue to discredit the chances of the revival of the BJP and the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, as the people of the state see both parties as “betrayers”.