The three-day annual Mahanadu of the Telugu Desam Party was completely dedicated to hitting hard at the Bharatiya Janata Party and its leadership. The meet had also hurled abuses at YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan, but that was limited and they were seen as part of the bigger conspiracy against the TDP by the BJP.
The Mahanadu had declared the BJP as enemy No. 1 and claimed that it would fight the next elections only against the BJP that is aligning with the YSR Congress and the Jana Sena. The event also concluded with a dream of Chandrababu Naidu emerging as the national leader and playing key role in picking up the next Prime Minister, an alternative to Narendra Modi.
The Mahaandu set the tone for elections and felt that the election is crucial for the party to continue the developmental works that they have initiated in the last four years. The party termed the 2019 elections as historical responsibility of every Telugu voter as the objective is to defeat Narendra Modi and his designs one on side and develop Andhra Pradesh on the other.
The interesting factor in this Mahanadu was that the TDP had tried its best to convince the people its differences with Narendra Modi or the BJP were for AP and not for TDP. Chandrababu Naidu also tried to convince the people who any attempt to disturb or defeat TDP is an attempt to disturb the State. He had conveniently mixed electoral politics with the developmental initiatives.
After breaking the alliance with the BJP, Chandrababu Naidu had been speaking against the Central domination on the States, a core issue of the TDP when NTR was at the helm. Chandrababu Naidu had threated to block the movement of national vehicles, take over the national highways and now threatened to stop paying Central taxes. These challenges go well with the people and that is what he is doing now.
Jaganmohan Reddy was accepted as a hero when he challenged the mighty power of Sonia Gandhi. But that heroism is now gone as he fails to do so with Narendra Modi. Interestingly, Chandrababu Naidu is seen as a hero for challenging Narendra Modi, while Jaganmohan Reddy is seen as peacemaker. This image is likely to help Chandrababu Naidu in the next round of elections, if he continues to project himself as a fighting against Narendra Modi and BJP. All that he has to do is to keep up the tempo and continue to hit hard at Modi or even intensify the attack on Modi as the election time approaches fast.
