Naidu Shares Dais With Modi, Hints At Tie-Up

In a significant political development, Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu shared the dais with BJP prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, at the culmination convention of Manthan organised by the Citizens For Accountable Governance, in Delhi, on Wednesday.

Addressing the convention, Naidu dropped several hints that he might sail with the National Democratic Alliance during the 2014 general elections. Praising the Atal Bihari Vajpayee led NDA government between 1996 and 2004, he said that the present UPA government has brought governance to its knees with corruption, inefficiency and policy paralysis. He said that the Congress should be defeated to "save the country".

Naidu said that the country's growth rate was just around 4% in 1991, and that the TDP-backed United Front and the NDA government had taken initiatives for speedy economic growth.

Accusing the Congress of misusing the global economic boom of 2004, he said that the growth rate should be back to that of 2004, after the 2014 elections.

Speaking about the ordinance on convicted parliamentarians, Naidu said that the Congress was enacting a political drama on the issue. "We saw the drama around the ordinance on convicted lawmakers. They brought the ordinance, then Rahul Gandhi spoke against it," he said, "He (Rahul Gandhi) criticises the Prime Minister when he is away, but we all know that Manmohan Singh is a puppet in the hands of Sonia Gandhi. Rahul was well aware of the ordinance," said Naidu.

The TDP chief also praised Narendra Modi. "When I was in power, people talked about Hyderabad. Now, everyone talks only about development in Gujarat," he said. (INN)