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A patient Chandrababu Naidu gets the better of BJP

Shireen in Hyderabad

Tough public posturing and hard bargaining over the past few weeks marked the seat-sharing agreement in Andhra Pradesh hammered out between the ruling Telugu Desam Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday.

From the beginning, Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu was working on a well-planned strategy. While he maintained all along that he would take an appropriate decision at the appropriate time, he did not lose any opportunity to praise Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, particularly his handling of the Kargil conflict.

Simultaneoulsy, Chandrababu Naidu also launched a tirade against the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi. He went to the extent of saying that the Congress was confined to a few states and was not in a position to contest more than 270 out of the 540 seats in the Lok Sabha. The praise for Vajpayee and the Congress-baiting comforted the BJP national leadership.

On the other side, the BJP state leaders were getting impatient with his reluctance to say 'yes'. In this backdrop, the BJP general secretary, M Venkaiah Naidu, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, even hinted that poll alliance would be possible only if the TDP joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Yet, Chandrababu Naidu remained unmoved. He wanted to bypass not only the state BJP leadership, but also his close friend Venkaiah Naidu. He had decided to deal only with the BJP's national leadership, more precisely Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani. He was not prepared to talk with even BJP president Kushabhau Thakre.

So, while senior state BJP leaders fretted and fumed, set deadlines and served ultimatums, Naidu waited patiently.

On July 31, the state BJP unit finalised a list of candidates for all the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies and also short-listed of nominees for 100 out of the 294 assembly seats.

At this stage Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Defence Minister George Fernandes and NDA coordination committee convenor invited Naidu to Delhi for talks but he politely declined the invitation.

On August 8, BJP state office-bearers adopted a resolution "requesting the central leadership to permit the state unit to contest the ensuing polls on its own." They also finalised the names of candidates for all the 294 assembly seats and sent the list across to the central leadership.

Naidu knew the time had come. He immediately sought the intervention of Vajpayee and also let him know the number of seats he would be willing to concede to the BJP.

Initially, the BJP central leaders were not impressed by the numbers quoted by Chandrababu Naidu. However, to salvage the situation which was quickly drifting towards a point of no-return, Vajpayee agreed to the TDP's offer.

In this entire process of hammering out the seat-sharing agreement, Chandrababu Naidu not only successefully bypassed the state BJP leaders but also forced them to come down on their initial demands for seats.

Naidu succeeded in killing two birds with a single stone. He worked out the seat-sharing deal with the BJP on his own terms, thereby containing the damage that the BJP would have caused by putting up its candidates in all the Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies in the state in the absence of a poll tie-up.

The seat-sharing also ensures that the BJP's future growth is stunted as the party does not have the chance to make its electoral presence felt all over the state in the crucial elections.

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