The Centre has invited Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader and current Opposition leader in Andhra Pradesh, N Chandrababu Naidu for participation in a G-20 related meeting, to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on December 5. Naidu received a call from Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Prahlad Joshi to invite him to the special session.
India takes over the presidency of the G-20 committee in December, which the international community sees as a significant development under Mr. Modi’s leadership and an important milestone in the history of the group. India assumed the chair of the G-20 nations, at the recently concluded meeting at Bali, Indonesia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had recently unveiled the logo for the next high-level summit of G-20 nations.
The December 5th meeting has been convened with several Indian political parties to discuss and devise economic and financial strategies, to be adopted at the next G-20 meeting hosted in 2023, under India’s leadership. Naidu, who served as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh for nearly 14 years, is seen as one of the most experienced leaders in the country, known for his administrative skills and his focus on economic development.
This is the second time, the BJP led Central government has extended an invitation to Naidu. A few months ago, he attended a meeting convened to discuss the celebrations of “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, honoring India’s struggle for Independence. It was the first time, Naidu was sharing the dais with PM Narendra Modi, after he snapped ties with the BJP-led NDA government in 2018, in protest of the Centre’s delay in granting a “special status” to Andhra for the benefit of the recently bifurcated state’s economic development.
In 2019, Naidu’s TDP contested the state elections on its own without an alliance with the BJP or actor Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena party. The TDP lost the 2019 state elections to Jagan Reddy’s YSRCP party. Naidu has since admitted that snapping ties with the BJP/NDA was a strategic mistake, which cost the party dearly. His party also lost some of its leaders and long standing members to the BJP. For a couple of years now, Naidu has been trying to re-build a stronger rapport with the BJP leadership as well as the Jana Sena party, in its stand against the current government led by the YSRCP party.
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