: Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu sought to put on a brave face after four of his party Rajya Sabha members switched over to BJP, but the saffron party and ruling YSR Congress pushed the opposition party into a defensive position Friday.
The YSRC in Andhra Pradesh launched a frontal attack on the TDP, saying the crossover of four MPs to the BJP was part of Chandrababu Naidus "desperate attempts" to befriend the national party once again.
"Fearing that he will have to spend the rest of his life in jail when his unbridled corruption gets exposed,Chandrababu is desperately longing for a rapprochement with the BJP.
He is getting the route cleared by sending the Rajya Sabha members first," YSRC Parliamentary Party leader V Vijayasai Reddy alleged.
"Through these MPs, he is seeking to broker a compromise with the BJP leadership and escape from the cases," Reddy said in a tweet.
The BJP, on the other hand, asserted that Chandrababu Naidu had no right to talk about defections since he was the one who snatched away 23 YSRC MLAs and also made four of them ministers in the previous AP government.
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"Chandrababu is now talking about values. What right does he have?" BJP vice-president S Vishnuvardhan Reddy asked in a statement.
Only the BJP could play the real opposition to YSRC in AP and also contribute to the development of the state, he said, adding the TDP leaders were hence joining his party.
The TDP, however, took pains to rebut the charges that the four MPs were sent into the BJP as coverts.
"We have not fallen to that level. They (four MPs) are only betrayers, who never enjoyed peoples support. People will teach them a lesson," former minister Alapati Rajendra Prasad said.
After the crisis broke out in the party Thursday, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu who was in Europe on a vacation with family had said "TDP will come back" as "history will repeat itself".
"We have lakhs of karyakarthas and crores of Telugu people behind us. History will repeat itself. There is nothing to worry," he said in a tweet Friday morning.
These crises situations are not new to me, not new to the party.
Earlier, many said TDP is dead. Many said TDP is a closed chapter. Many said leaders are deserting the party and that it will be gone and buried. We never gave up. We came back," he said in another tweet.