As the Telugu Desam Party today wound up its two-day mega conference, Mahanadu, to take stock of its disastrous defeat, the party’s alliance with the BJP seemed to be headed for trouble. A majority of TDP leaders wanted to review the ties with the BJP, citing Gujarat riots as one of the factors that led to the combine’s defeat in the polls.Setting the tone for soul-searching, party chief N Chandrababu Naidu admitted, for the first time in public, that Gujarat riots had left a deep impact on the minorities and could have contributed to his party’s poor showing at the hustings. ‘‘We need to make an in-depth analysis of what went wrong and where we have failed. Despite doing our best in ensuring all-round development, we lost the elections,’’ Naidu told the party gathering comprising over 6,000 delegates. Most speakers attributed the party’s electoral reverses to its alliance with BJP and felt that minorities had moved away from the party after Gujarat riots. ‘‘A majority of partymen who spoke at Mahanadu said that Gujarat incidents had adversely affected our poll prospects. We have asked the party leadership to review our ties with BJP,’’ general secretary C Ramachandraiah told reporters. Asking the party cadre not to get disheartened by the defeat, Naidu admitted that his strategy of going for early polls, in the wake of an abortive assassination bid on him by Naxalites, had failed to click. The pungent attack against the Telugu Desam party leadership from its lower-rung leaders continued on the concluding day of Mahanadu. All the 20 speakers who spoke today lashed out at senior leaders for neglecting ordinary workers. Some of them even went to the extent of urging Naidu to dump the ‘chamchas’ and ‘cleanse the party’ immediately. Though everyone wanted Naidu to continue as the leader, most speakers did not spare the supremo. His style of functioning, the decision to go for early polls, his tendency to encourage a "coterie" around him and the growing gap from ordinary workers—all came for critisism from the speakers. (With agencies)
