Chandrababu Naidu is fond of reminding his interlocutors that he is among the country’s senior-most leaders, for he was a chief minister in the mid-1990s, much before Narendra Modi. In those years, Naidu, 74, feted for his innovative governance of Andhra Pradesh, was also among the most important players in national politics as an architect of the United Front governments and subsequently as a key pillar of support for the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Indeed, Naidu’s defeat in Andhra Pradesh elections in the 2004 elections — and the accompanying triumph of the Congress in the state; the party won 37 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats — was among the key reasons that Vajpayee’s government couldn’t return to power in Delhi.
Two decades later, the key to the formation of another NDA government, this time led by Modi, is once again in the hands of Chandrababu Naidu, who has traversed the journey of being a Modi ally in 2014 to adversary after 2018 to ally once again this year. All indications so far suggest that the TDP-BJP alliance will stay. Naidu, who has won a massive majority in the state assembly elections, will take over as the state CM. And he will offer Modi support at the Centre.
But the question is the terms of the support. Naidu can be expected to extract his pound of flesh, be it in terms of ministerial positions or financial support for Andhra Pradesh or some form of political support for the transition to his son’s leadership of TDP. Irrespective of the fresh terms of engagement between TDP and BJP, Naidu’s relevance — he is also being wooed by the Congress to shift to the INDIA bloc — shows why in Indian politics, it is never wise to write off any politician and definitely not a politician who has shaped his state and shaped central politics in some way or the other for three decades.