The meeting between Union home minister Amit Shah, BJP president JP Nadda and TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu last week set off buzz of an alliance between the BJP and TDP before 2024. Though leaders from both the parties have maintained silence over the meeting, sources in BJP tell ET that alliance is possibly the best way forward for the BJP in Andhra Pradesh.

In 2019 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, BJP fought alone in Andhra Pradesh and couldn’t win any seat. Its vote share was even less than one per cent.

“According to our calculations, we have around six per cent vote share in Andhra Pradesh, but since the election was bipolar, our supporters shifted to YSR Congress and we got lesser votes in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections,” a state BJP leader told ET.

Over the past five years, BJP has been working to strengthen the organisation in the state, aiming at 2024 Lok Sabha elections. However, party leaders feel that the election is largely between two regional parties – YSR Congress and TDP – and going alone will not yield results for the BJP.

“We are working on building our organisation to become an alternative force in the state. In the meantime, the 2024 elections are here and we need to improve our numbers from the state,” added the leader.

In Andhra Pradesh, both the regional parsties, in recent times, have been supportive of the BJP at the national level. YSR Congress cannot have a pre-poll alliance with the BJP keeping in mind its minority vote bank.In these circumstances, an alliance with the TDP and Jana Sena are the available options for the BJP. The BJP is aiming to contest half- a-dozen Lok Sabha seats in the state in alliance with these two parties. In all likelihood the alliance could be announced closer to the polls.