Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam national president N. Chandrababu Naidu indirectly ridiculed Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s proposal for formation of a new front that excluded both the BJP and the Congress. Addressing the Telangana TD Mahanadu on Thursday, Mr Naidu said: “Some leaders are speaking about anti-BJP and anti-Congress front. I did this 22 years ago. The formation of the United Front government at the Centre was against BJP and against Congress.”

He said till 1996, pro-BJP or pro-Congress parties formed the government. For the first time in 1996, without BJP and Congress, the United Front government was formed. He said it was at the initiative of the TD that Janata Dal (S) chief H D Deve Gowda became Prime Minister in 1996. Mr Naidu said after the 2019 elections there will be radical changes in politics and the TD will play a key role in national politics. Without the TD no party will form the government at the centre, he declared.

Criticising the BJP, Mr Naidu said that in 1984 the TD won 35 Lok Sabha seats and the BJP only two. When some TD workers raised slogans that Mr Naidu should become Prime Minister, he said, “I have no ambition to become Prime Minister. In the past I have rejected the offer twice. I want to be in the state and to develop both Telugu states.” Mr Naidu said that he went to Bengaluru to attend the oath-taking ceremony of H.D. Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister of Karnataka on the invitation of the JD(S). He said the Congress may take part in the Karnataka government, but Mr Gowda has special affection for him, and it was on the invitation of Mr Gowda that he attended the function. He said that his Bengaluru visit helped him to get support for special status for AP.

“The NDA government has done nothing for TS and AP or Hyderabad and Amaravati, but the centre is giving thousands of crores of rupees for statues in other states,” Mr Naidu said. His wish is that TS and AP should become the number one and two states and Hyderabad and Amaravati should beco-me two top cities in the country. He said in TS also TD will play a key role after the 2019 elections. Mr Naidu alleged that the present controversy regarding the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams is a drama the BJP is enacting against AP.

He alleged that in a conspiracy against AP the central government led by the BJP tried to take over the TTD. Mr Naidu warned the BJP that if it plays any dramas with Lord Venkateswara it will be the end of its existence. “BJP leaders say that the ornaments of Lord Venkateswara are in my house. A diamond was not in the records of the TTD in the past but now it is in the records,” he said. Mr Naidu said that he was born at the feet of Lord Venkateswara; he was given rebirth in the Alipiri attack by Maoists. He said that Lord Venkateswara is a powerful god and warned the BJP not to enact any dramas with the TTD.