Can the BJP-TDP-JSP alliance recreate its 2014 election magic?

BJP, TDP and JSP reunite for 2024 elections in Andhra Pradesh, aiming to recreate past success despite challenges and voter concerns.

The Andhra Pradesh political dream team of 2014 — which fell apart with disastrous consequences for all three partners in 2019 — is back together again. Despite the BJP’s lack of enthusiasm for the partnership this time round, the TDP’s fear of a backlash from an electorate unhappy with the BJP-led Union government, and the unknown strength of the YSR Congress party, the trio is hoping to recreate its electoral magic of a decade ago.

In 2014, the alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Telegu Desam Party — with outside support from Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party, which did not join the electoral fray — won the favour of the electorate, catapulting the TDP’s N. Chandrababu Naidu to the top, making him the first Chief Minister of the residual State of Andhra Pradesh, after the bifurcation of the State.

Also read: BJP, TDP, Jana Sena join hands to fight Lok Sabha, Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls

Just before the 2019 elections, the TDP severed ties with the BJP, saying that the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre had failed to give Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Nadu’s party lost miserably to the YSR Congress party led by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, managing to win just 23 of the 175 seats in the State Assembly. The JSP had also cut its ties with both the BJP and the TDP and had gone solo in the polls; it won just one seat, with Mr. Kalyan himself losing both the constituencies he had contested. The BJP failed to win any seats in the State.

Now, six years after that debacle, the combination is back in the reckoning.

Though Mr. Kalyan had announced his alliance with the TDP in September last year, when Mr. Naidu was in judicial custody related to his alleged involvement in the A.P. Skill Development scam, it took some time for the BJP to join in, despite the BJP and JSP already being in a pre-poll alliance as well.

Also read: To join or not to? BJP’s dilemma on tie-up with TDP-JSP for Andhra Pradesh elections continues