Today in Politics: Will BJP pick a side in Andhra Pradesh? As Jagan arrives in Delhi, speculation swirls

A day after Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N Chandrababu Naidu met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief J P Nadda in Delhi, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy arrived in the national Capital on Thursday night. This has sparked buzz that the southern state with 25 Lok Sabha seats is set to undergo a political reconfiguration.

Jagan is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders on Friday. This comes days after the Andhra CM said he hopes no party returns to power at the Centre with an absolute majority as that will leave the state with no leverage. The signals emanating from Jagan’s meetings in Delhi will be closely tracked, with the Andhra CM’s Delhi sojourn likely to be among the top political stories of the day.

In context: The visit is being officially viewed as one where Jagan will discuss special category status for Andhra Pradesh, one of the long-pending demands of the state and something over which Naidu broke ties with the BJP in 2019. As Sreenivas Janyala explains, during his 2017 statewide yatra the YSRCP leader constantly targeted the TDP over its inability to get the Centre to concede the special status. This ultimately forced Naidu’s hands and he quit the NDA. It also created the momentum that propelled Jagan to power in 2019.

But now the Andhra CM finds himself in the same boat that his chief rival and predecessor found himself in five years ago. The TDP wants the BJP to join hands with it and Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party to take on Jagan. Earlier, Sreenivas and Liz Mathew reported that while some leaders in BJP and TDP remain opposed to a tie-up, the top leadership of both parties is keen on an alliance.

For the BJP, expanding its footprint in the