At a time when the BJP-led Centre is grappling with political protests over Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Naidu is quietly building a Southern Alliance to push his vision of cooperation through complicated projects like interlinking of rivers to solve water woes. Naidu, who is the senior-most and the oldest serving chief minister in India, is using cultural diplomacy to reach out to chief ministers across the political divide. The second edition of Vijayawada Utsav, a cultural festival being hosted in the state capital, has become the epicentre of this outreach. For starters, Naidu extended an invite to all chief ministers, but it is acceptance by non-NDA chief ministers which has made the initiative politically significant.
The first to arrive was Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, whose state is Andhra Pradesh’s principal competitor in attracting industrial investments. Their meeting on Tuesday went beyond the festivities, with discussions on Krishna water supplies to Chennai and the proposed Godavari-Cauvery river-linking project. The meeting came right after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Chhatron ki Goonj’ event in Chennai. But the confirmation list goes beyond INDIA bloc ally Vijay. According to sources, Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy has accepted the invitation and may attend Vijayawada Utsav on Sunday. Karnataka chief minister DK Shivakumar was expected to attend but has now conveyed he has to host the Chief Justice and will not be able to make it. Both are Congress chief ministers and compete aggressively with Naidu to woo and wean big-ticket investments.
The political significance lies in Naidu’s ability to engage leaders from rival political formations while remaining a crucial pillar of the NDA government at the Centre. By placing river interlinking at the centre of these conversations, Naidu is attempting to build common ground among southern states, where water-sharing disputes have historically been politically contentious. His pitch also comes days after he urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to establish a national water grid. Even as the protests are raging in Delhi, Naidu and his party leaders have maintained silence, steering clear of even off-record remarks.
For Naidu, the festival offers an opportunity to position himself as a regional consensus-builder, balancing his alliance with the BJP at the Centre with his ambitions to make Andhra Pradesh an economic powerhouse. It is a political balancing act in which cooperation over water could provide the opening for a broader southern dialogue.
While the first edition of Vijayawada Utsav last year was relatively low key with Vice-President CP Radhakrishnan gracing the occasion, the guest list of the second edition is particularly star-studded. President of India Draupadi Murmu attended the festival on Wednesday, Ambassador of China Xu Feihong on Thursday and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav is expected on Saturday.
