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BJP national president JP Nadda, who was seated in the house, immediately stood up to clarify that no such demand was made by Naidu or any alliance partner in the NDA
Both the TDP and JDS are currently part of the NDA, which is led by the BJP. (PTI File)
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has chosen not to react to the comments made by former PM and Janata Dal (Secular) (JDS) supremo HD Deve Gowda against their party chief and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
“He is a veteran politician and somebody who is revered greatly by our party leader and our party. Nobody really knows why he made that comment, but since the clarification came from [JP] Nadda, the matter is pretty much over for us,” a top source in TDP told CNN-News18.
Both the TDP and Gowda’s JDS are currently part of the NDA, which is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In a surprising move, Gowda, during his speech on the presidential address, mentioned that Naidu wanted to become the vice-chairman of the NDA, but it was refused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. BJP national president JP Nadda, who was seated in the house, immediately stood up to clarify that no such demand was made by Naidu or any alliance partner in the NDA, and that no conversations are taking place about any such post.
Even after the house was adjourned, while speaking to reporters outside the parliament, Nadda echoed the same sentiment. He went on to elaborate that there was never a question of any such discussion within the alliance partners, given the fact that all of them, including the TDP, which is one of the biggest allies of the Modi 3.0 government, had pledged its unwavering support to PM Modi in this new term.
It may also be remembered that despite multiple claims coming to the fore about alliance partners demanding certain ministries, and a certain quota in the government, none of the alliance partners, especially the TDP, made any specific demand about a ministry or the number of ministers who need to be accommodated in the Modi cabinet.
With 16 MPs in the Lok Sabha, Naidu’s party has Rammohan Naidu as the cabinet minister and Chandrasekhar Pemmasani as minister of state in the Modi government. Meanwhile, Naidu has also accommodated the BJP in its cabinet in the state.
At the same time, JDS’s HD Kumaraswamy is currently a cabinet minister in the Modi government at the centre.
In fact, JDS also had an alliance with the BJP in the state government in Karnataka before they were defeated by the Congress in 2023.
Naidu was also an instrumental force during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government, when he was the national convenor. “Naidu has his hands full with the role of the chief minister in the state of Andhra Pradesh,” the source from the TDP clarified as to why there is no scope for him to take a central role.
In 2019, while Naidu was able to sweep the elections in the Lok Sabha winning 16 of the 25 seats, the assembly was swept as well by the yellow army.
