Telugu Desam Party

Telugu Desam Party (TDP), regional political party in Andhra Pradesh state, southeastern India. It also at times had a strong presence in national politics in New Delhi.

The TDP was formed in March 1982 by Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (popularly known as NTR), a former star and director of Telugu-language movies in Andhra Pradesh. The TDP espoused no specific ideology except for its commitment to safeguarding “the political, economic, social, and cultural foundations of Telugu-speaking people.” At the time of its formation, the party’s major goal was to oust the Indian National Congress (Congress Party) from the state government, which it had controlled since the establishment of Andhra Pradesh in 1956. At the same time, however, the TDP expressed its willingness to support Congress or other parties at the national level.

Under NTR’s leadership the TDP quickly emerged as a significant political force in the state. The combination of his charisma and oratorical skills with the party’s populist measures produced a landslide victory for TDP-affiliated independent candidates in the 1983 Andhra Pradesh state assembly elections (the party had not yet been officially recognized), and NTR became chief minister (head of government). The party had a similarly strong performance in the 1985 assembly elections, with NTR remaining as chief minister, but it lost badly to Congress in the 1989 assembly elections and relinquished power. The TDP remained the largest opposition party in the chamber, however.

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NTR’s marriage to Lakshmi Parvathi (or Parvati) in 1993 and his attempts to groom her as his successor created dissension within the TDP, especially with Nara Chandrababu Naidu, his son-in-law. The party, nonetheless, won a large majority of assembly seats—216 out of 294 total—and NTR returned for another term as chief minister. His tenure was short, however, as Naidu engineered an intraparty coup in 1995 and then took over as leader of the party and as chief minister of the state. NTR died early in the following year, precipitating more dissension within the TDP as Parvathi attempted to form her own TDP faction.

Under Naidu the main TDP continued to rule Andhra Pradesh, as Parvathi’s group had minimal impact on the political climate. The government retained many of NTR’s policies—notably never forming an alliance with the Congress Party in the state—but it also reversed others promoted by the former leader (e.g., it lifted a ban on liquor sales, which had cost the state considerable tax revenue). The TDP had another strong performance in the 1999 assembly elections, winning 180 seats; Naidu remained as chief minister.

Thereafter, however, the TDP’s electoral fortunes declined as the party was confronted with several issues that affected its political prospects. Notable among those was a growing demand that a new state, called Telangana, be created out of a portion of Andhra Pradesh. At the forefront of that movement was the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). Party opinion was divided on the issue, with a number of TDP leaders supporting the TRS proposal while the rest opposed it. The emergence of smaller parties such as Praja Rajyam (which later merged with the Congress Party) and the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (formed out of a 2011 split in Congress) also helped to erode the TDP’s traditional support base in the coastal districts of the state and among its constituency in the Kamma caste (a small landowning community in southern India).

In the 2004 assembly elections the TDP, in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), could collectively win only 49 seats (TDP 47, BJP 2). Prior to the 2009 assembly elections, the TDP changed its affiliations and allied itself with the TRS and several leftist parties. The two main elements of the coalition won a total of 102 seats, with the TDP garnering 92 and the TRS 10. Although the result was a marked improvement over that of 2004, it was still far short of the Congress Party’s overall 156-seat majority.

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The TDP’s political performance at the national level largely mirrored its fortunes in Andhra Pradesh. In 1984 in the first elections it contested for the Lok Sabha (lower chamber of the Indian parliament), the party won 30 seats, but its total dropped to just 2 seats in the 1989 polls. Recoveries to 13 and 16 seats in the 1991 and 1996 parliamentary contests, respectively, were followed by a reduction to 12 in 1998. The next year, however, the TDP turned in a solid performance, winning 29 seats and becoming the fourth largest party in the chamber. It extended outside support to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition (i.e., it backed the NDA without joining it) that governed the country between 1998 and 2004. Following the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, however, when the party managed to win only five seats, it severed its ties to the NDA and joined the so-called “Third Front” of leftist parties against Congress and the BJP. In the 2009 parliamentary polling the party increased its seat total to six.

State assembly elections were held in the spring of 2014, just prior to the creation of Telangana state in June out of the northwestern portion of Andhra Pradesh. The TDP, again allied with the BJP, won a plurality of seats, but the state government had been placed under national control until the division of the state was complete. When the newly configured 175-seat Andhra Pradesh assembly was convened in June (following the departure of the Telangana members), the TDP-BJP alliance controlled a majority of 106 seats, and the TDP formed a government. Naidu again became chief executive.