What Does Naidu Want, Really?

WHEN THE BJP-led NDA emerged 18 seats short of a Lok Sabha majority in the General Election of 1998, Nara Chandrababu Naidu was in a bind. For days he mulled over whether his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) should support BJP’s AB Vajpayee to form a government at the Centre. At first, the Andhra leader decided to stay equidistant from the Congress and BJP, but then turned to his aides for advice. According to one them, he dissuaded Naidu—who till less than three months before that had been convenor of the left-of-centre United Front which had been in power in Delhi with Congress support—from shifting his allegiance to the Right. By that time, Naidu had made a place for himself on the national stage of coalition politics. As Chief Minister of the undivided Andhra Pradesh then, Naidu could not resist being an ally of the country’s new ruling party. The Centre’s support, he was convinced, would help him run the state. And so he switched sides.

The BJP offered Naidu’s party the Speaker’s post in Parliament. He picked GMC Balayogi, a little known MP who flew from Hyderabad to Delhi and reached the Lok Sabha Secretary General’s chamber just 45 minutes before the nomination filing deadline. The TDP’s 12 MPs proved crucial for the Vajpayee Government to win its vote of confidence. After the 1999 General Election, Naidu had an even bigger chip in his 29 MPs to bargain with the BJP for a favourable economic deal for Andhra Pradesh. This game served him well, though he did threaten to quit the NDA on occasion, as he did after the Gujarat riots of 2002 when Narendra Modi led that state. Naidu’s strategy involved a balance. On one hand, he had to contain the depletion of his party’s minority vote; and on the other, he needed to extract as much as he could from the NDA Government. On that occasion, he was appeased with another consignment of rice under the Centre’s Food for Work programme. Little would Naidu have imagined then that he would be testing his craft of brinkmanship with Modi as Prime Minister 16 years later.

Neither Modi nor Naidu would have forgotten that trade-off as the latter tries to hold the NDA to ransom with the TDP’s 16 seats in the current Lok Sabha over the question of Special Status for Andhra Pradesh. Back in 2014, when Naidu narrowly won the recently bifurcated state’s polls to become Chief Minister again, a TDP-BJP alliance was a matter of mutual interest. The BJP was said to be in touch with the YSR Congress’ Jagan Mohan Reddy as well, but Naidu outplayed him for a deal. Now, with elections due next year to both the Andhra Assembly and Lok Sabha, the calculators are back out. Naidu’s political rival in the state is trying to leverage anti-BJP sentiment, and with Hyderabad awarded to Telangana and Amaravati being built as its new capital, the Chief Minister needs to display gains from the alliance.

The Modi Government had initially okayed Special Status for Andhra, but in September 2016, it cited constraints highlighted by the 14th Finance Commission to convince Naidu to settle for a ‘special package’ instead, that could offer equivalent Central aid. However, it turned into an emotive issue in the state. With five of YSR Congress members threatening to resign from Parliament on April 6th in protest in case Andhra was refused that Status—which is meant for historically disadvantaged states such as those in the Northeast—Naidu hardened his stance. He withdrew two TDP ministers from the Modi Government without leaving the NDA.

For a BJP on an upswing across the country, a snapping of ties with the TDP need not be a bad outcome, for it would allow the party to project itself as an alternative to the state’s two major regional parties for the 2019 polls. The Modi-led NDA differs in disposition from the Vajpayee-led alliance. As a government functionary recalls, Vajpayee was liberal in acceding to Naidu’s demands. The Chief Minister would fly down with a delegation of bureaucrats for meetings with the Prime Minister and his team, and Vajpayee would tell his aides, “Dekhiye kya ho sakta hai’ (see what can be done), and that’s all it took. Yashwant Sinha, who was Finance Minister at the time, recollects how Naidu would make the rounds of all ministries on each Delhi visit to ensure fund allocations. “He was more active than other CMs in getting Central grants,” he says, “The smarter CMs got more.”

There were some instances when Vajpayee rejected Naidu’s proposals. In 2002, when the NDA was discussing a presidential candidate, Naidu had suggested then Vice-President Krishan Kant for Rashtrapati Bhavan; Kant had been the Andhra Governor in 1995 when Naidu had staged an inner-party coup to take over the TDP from his father-in-law NT Rama Rao. Vajpayee, ever the good listener, heard Naidu out but kept silent. This may have been construed as approval by Naidu, who assured Kant that he would be the NDA’s choice. Later, once APJ Abdul Kalam was picked for the post, Naidu fell in line. Though Naidu was convenor of the NDA, he did not have the same stature and clout that he enjoyed with the United Front earlier. The BJP was all-powerful, and he had no say in such matters as who would be the coalition’s prime minister. With the UF, he was content as kingmaker, and displayed no interest into moving from Hyderabad to 7 Race Course Road in Delhi. In 1997, Naidu’s backing was seen as having had a significant role in the UF opting for IK Gujral as its Prime Minister to replace HD Deve Gowda, who had been forced out by a Congress tantrum.

From kingmaker, however, Naidu would turn not into king but a pinch hitter—making the most of every little opportunity he got to score a political gain for himself and his party. His critics say he was merely lucky to have the support of circumstances. His supporters say he always had a vision. “He is a committed, hard- working man, who is open to new ideas. That makes a world of difference. He has a modern outlook,” says former Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, who has known Naidu for 40 years. He recalls how after the 2014 cyclone that devastated the state, particularly Visakhapatnam, Naidu used the opportunity to switch the region’s public lighting to LED bulbs to save on energy. When Raju informed him that a high rate of VAT on aviation turbine fuel was putting air travel out of reach for everyone but the well-off and suggested a cap of 1-2 per cent on that tax, Naidu wanted 1 per cent, a decision that would boost the aviation sector.

For a Modi-led BJP on an upswing across the country, a snapping of ties with the TDP need not be a bad outcome for it would allow the party to project itself as an alternative to the state’s two major regional parties for the 2019 polls

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Raju had entered the Andhra Assembly as a Janata Party member in 1978, the same year as Naidu, who was in the Congress then. One of the two TDP members who have resigned from Modi’s Council of Ministers, Raju describes Andhra’s split under UPA-2 as “a delicate surgery done with a butcher’s knife”, alleging that the concerns of his home state were left unaddressed. “The devil lay in the details,” says Raju. Justifying Naidu’s withdrawal decision, he says the state is not asking for more than it is entitled to and that the Centre should honour its commitment.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, however, has said the Centre had agreed to give Andhra Pradesh the equivalent of Special Status under another name. Under this, the Centre would bear 90 per cent of the cost burden of all Centrally-sponsored schemes, just as it would be under that Status. To plug the state’s gap in finances, Jaitley added, Rs 4,000 crore had been paid and only Rs 138 crore remained.

At a press conference held soon after, the Chief Minister described the Centre’s attitude as “insulting” and said that Jaitley was making it look as if the state was asking for money at the expense of the country’s Defence budget. Naidu also said that he had visited the capital 29 times to meet the Prime Minister over the past four years. “I showed a lot of patience, but we were taken very lightly all the time,” said Naidu, “The Centre is behaving as if we are greedy to get a lot of money from the Centre which does not belong to us. We are only asking for what is rightfully ours and what has been provided for in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.” According to TDP sources, Naidu had tried to meet Modi for six months and then gave up—and finally given an appointment this January, a year afterwards.

The Chief Minister’s critics see political compulsions if not outright cynicism in his approach. “Naidu is a big opportunist. Right now, over the Special Status issue, he is just posturing. He withdrew ministers but did not quit the NDA. He had said he will not allow Narendra Modi to enter Hyderabad and then he praised him. He blamed BJP for his defeat in 2004 and now he is again blaming it,” says Mithun Reddy, an MP of the YSR Congress.

THE POLITICAL WHEEL has turned a full circle for Naidu, who is again distancing himself from the BJP. This is being seen as an attempt to blunt any advantage that the YSR Congress may get by crying out for Special Status. In any case, his opposition expects the state’s minority vote next year. Naidu’s TDP won just a shade over 2 per cent votes more than the YSR Congress in 2014, though its tally of seats was 35 higher than its rival. A slight shift in favour away from the TDP, Naidu knows, could turn into a big reversal.

What Naidu has to weigh is the political fallout of breaking ties with the BJP, which is now keen to expand its presence in the state on its own. Under BJP President Amit Shah’s aggressive plans, the chances of this happening cannot be dismissed as trivial. In 2014, the BJP won four of the 13 seats it contested for the 175-member Assembly. It got 2.2 per cent of the state’s popular vote. With all seats contested, the BJP could expect to raise that share significantly. “The demand for Special Status is being raised with a political objective and we believe it will boomerang on these parties. This will give the BJP an opportunity to tell people that these regional parties have done a disservice to the people,” says BJP’s GVL Narasimha Rao, a leader of Telugu origin who is one of the party’s nominees for a Rajya Sabha seat.

Andhra politics is dominated by Reddys and Kammas, two caste groups that wield clout disproportionate to their numbers in the state’s electorate. This presents the BJP a chance to form a broader caste umbrella and reach out to groups like Kapus, which form a fifth of the state’s population. In December, the Naidu government decided to include Kapus, a community considered upper-caste, in the state’s list of Other Backward Classes and offer them 5 per cent reservations in education and employment. For a politician who has managed to make the most of almost every opportunity that has come his way all these years, Naidu appears somewhat unsure of what a BJP shake-up of caste equations in his state would look like.

Those who have known Naidu say he leads a spartan life. He adheres to a strict discipline and works long hours, beginning his day early with yoga. In his second tenure as Chief Minister, he had devoted much energy to turning Hyderabad into ‘Cyberabad’, an infotech hub, and took pride in being referred to as the state’s CEO. He would hold teleconferences with his MPs every morning, a practice he still continues. He lifted prohibition in the state, reformed a thicket of old rules and got then US President Bill Clinton to visit the state capital. What he lost sight of back then was agriculture, a factor which contributed to his electoral loss in 2004.

While Naidu has always portrayed himself as a reformist, his critics say he rarely bats an eyelid in doling out sops. A bundle of contradictions, Naidu’s political life has seen one of highs and lows. He has ridden waves that have suited him and cut his losses on bad political investments. In 1981, he was still in the Congress when he married TDP leader NTR’s daughter Bhuvaneswari. He joined his father-in-law’s party after being handed a defeat by it. Naidu exhibited organisational skills enough to strengthen the TDP, an attribute he would use against NTR himself in 1995. On the pretext of making space for his wife to take charge of the party, Naidu led a rebellion to oust and replace NTR as Chief Minister in one of the most dramatic palace coups of India. NTR died shortly after, in 1996, and that left Naidu as party supremo.

With elections coming up, Naidu is at the crossroads again. Numbers will dictate which friends turn foes or vice-versa.

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Amita Shah