Bjp Trying To Rope In Tdp

The BJP-led coalition government is trying hard to persuade the unrelenting Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to join the government at the proposed cabinet expansion in the first week of August, rather than supporting it from outside.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee dispatched his emissary Dilip Ray, minister of state for coal, to Hyderabad to speak to TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. Ray, who has emerged as Vajpayee's trusted aide, has a good rapport with Naidu. The Bharatiya Janata Party has concluded that the Vajpayee government would become stable if the TDP joined it. However, there were indications that Ray would not be successful in his mission. He left for Hyderabad on Wednesday, but had not returned till late on Friday night. Some BJP leaders held that the mission would not succeed as Naidu wanted to maintain a tactical distance from the BJP. The BJP's new effort is inspired by party leaders' informal talks with TDP MPs in Delhi. Some TDP MPs have told these leaders that they were keen to join the government, but only after Naidu agrees.

Naidu's dependence on Muslim votes has been preventing his party to join the government, a TDP leader said. The state assembly elections is due next year. A close identification could endanger the TDP's prospects at the elections and might help the Congress to regain the lost grounds, he said. Furthermore, the Telugu Desam Party has concluded that the so-called BJP wave in South India might just be a temporary phenomenon, particularly after the government's failure to deliver the goods, he held. The TDP would, thus, have to wait and see if the BJP would consolidate its hold, he added.