HYDERABAD, Jan 18: Lakshmi Parvati's NTR-TDP is seeing its honeymoon with the Bharratiya Janata Party coming to and end. What began as a bid to cash in on the anti-establishment and anti-Congress vote in Andhra Pradesh, is drawing to a close with the BJP finally crying off after NTR-TDP chief Lakshmi Parvati refused to come down on her position from wanting support in 22 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats.Her partymen have started deserting her and having started off with 33 TDP members backing her, she has come down to a handful. The seven `hardcore' NTR-TDP legislators, who are still technically ruling Telugu Desam members in the Legislative Assembly, have started leaning away and `leaders' in her party are now in the ruling party in the state or in the Congress.
Most of the legislators who opted to be with her joined the Chandrababu Naidu camp and a number of those who contested on the NTR-TDP ticket during the last elections have abandoned ship. On Friday, the entire Visakhapatnam city unit of the NTR-TDP
quit in protest against her functioning.
A former minister P Indra Reddy resigned to form the Jai Telangana, which is now a constituent of the Jan Morcha of Laloo Yadav. Three other legislators who were with her, including NTR-TDP vice-president G Muddukrishnama Naidu, are set to join the Congress.
``She does not understand things. Just because leaders at the national level entertain her as NTR's widow, she thinks she is their equal,'' a legislator who was with her till recently said.
As far as the BJP, which has been with her since NTR's death, is concerned, she embarrassed the State and local leadership no end and a stage came when they were forced to part ways. She first declared that her party would contest 20 seats, leaving 22 to the BJP. This was even before the leaders of the two parties thrashed out sharing of seats. She then upped her claim to 22 and maintained that `it could even go upto 24'.
``We have time and again advised her to assess her strength before making claims. She has been
embarrassing our leadership every time she opens her mouth and even at a joint news conference with Atal Behari Vajpayee in Delhi, she was at a variance,'' a senior functionary of the BJP said.
He, however, said that the BJP would discuss the matter further if she broached the subject. Even otherwise, the BJP was preparing to contest 35 seats.
It could be the better show that the NTR-TDP put up as compared to the BJP during the last Lok Sabha elections that prompted Lakshmi Parvati to aim high. Her party had got 10.66 per cent of the votes polled then, while the BJP was far behind with 5.65. But that election was just a few months after NTR's death and most of it could be a sympathy vote, a BJP leader pointed out.
And, as all this tumult is on, all Parvati has to say is this: Whoever believes in the ideals of NTR is welcome to work with us.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
