Hyderabad: With a keen eye on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, political satraps from across the country, including West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and former prime minister and JDS leader Deve Gowda have decided to campaign for chief minister Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh in a bid to solidify the mahagatbandhan equation.
This massive show of strength will also see the participation of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah and Sharad Pawar – most of whom have previously been a part of multiple soirees with Naidu in an effort to stitch an anti-BJP front.
However, it may be observed that this would mean that the opposition leaders, in a way, are campaigning against the Congress in the state where the party is contesting on its own on all all the 175 assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies. Regional parties in Andhra have an upper hand. The Congress has lost its ground in the state over the last few years and is struggling to re-establish itself. This is also the first time that Naidu is comtesting alone without any alliance.
Kejriwal is set to campaign for two days: March 28 in Vijaywada and March 31 in Vizag, where he will be joined by Banerjee. Meanwhile, Deve Gowda and Pawar will campaign in Ananthapur and Kurnool districts, which are dominated by the ‘Reddy’ community, a group believed to be loyalists of the opposition YSR Congress Party.
Farooq Abdullah, who is already in the state since late Monday night, would be touring the Kadapa and Kurnool constituencies along with Naidu and Yadav would be in Nellore district on April 2. Sources told News18 that Yashwanth Sinha, too, is expected to extend his support to the campaign.
Naidu, who’s already grappling with anti-incumbency, faces stiff competition from Jagan Mohan Reddy and the arch-rivals have been aggressively campaigning in the state ahead of elections. The Telugu Desam Party(TDP) chief faces the double challenge of retaining his position in the state and also managing to win majority seats in order to play a key role at the Centre.
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