Why TDP take U-turn on Badvel Assembly bypoll?

The main opposition TDP in Andhra Pradesh has took a U-turn all of a sudden on contesting the upcoming Badvel Assembly bypoll scheduled to be held on October 30.

The TDP on Sunday (today) announced that it will not contest Badvel bypoll in support of YSRCP candidate Sudha, the widow on YSRCP MLA Venkata Subbayya, who died in March this year due to protracted illness.

Interestingly, the TDP’s announcement came a day after Janasena declaring that it will not contest Badvel bypoll to make the election unanimous with the respect on deceased YSRCP MLA.

The TDP politburo which met under the chairmanship of party president and former CM N.Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday (today) unanimously decided not to contest Badvel bypoll to facilitate unanimous election of YSRCP candidate Sudha, the wife of YSRCP sitting MLA Subbayya who died.

Earlier, the TDP decided to contest the election and Chandrababu even announced Rajashekar as party’s candidate, who lost to YSRCP’s Subbayya in 2019 Assembly polls. Naidu said that it’s TDP which has set the tradition of not contesting bypolls if family members of deceased MLAs contest elections, whichever party they represent.

Now questions are being raised in political circles why Naidu declared party’s candidate in the first place and was Naidu not aware of “TDP tradition” of not contesting bypolls, when he declared Rajasekhar as candidate to take on widow of YSRCP sitting MLA.

These sudden U-turns on such sensitive issues will further damage the credibility of both Naidu and TDP, political analysts.

Speculations are rife that Naidu took U-turn only to avoid big embarrassment of facing yet another humiliating defeat at the hands of YSRCP in Badvel if TDP contests the elections.

Various survey reports gathered by Naidu reportedly clearly indicated that YSRCP will win this bypoll with a comfortable majority as YSRCP candidate Sudha is riding high on a ‘sympathy wave’ and there was no scope for TDP or any other party to defeat her.