The Rediff Special/ George Iype

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu has invented a new political game: sulk and succeed. It is an art India's CEO chief minister has been playing neatly and deftly to his state's economic advantage.

In the last two-and-a-half years Naidu has sulked at the way Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has handled sensitive issues and the manner in which the premier has dealt with partners in the National Democratic Alliance.

Naidu's Telugu Desam Party, considered the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'most trusted and valued ally,' has often threatened to review its support to the Vajpayee coalition. The TDP has, on at least two occasions, talked of walking out of the NDA. First, during Vajpayee's crisis in March when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad threatened to built a Ram temple at Ayodhya and then in the aftermath of the communal killings in Gujarat.

But, despite his 'grave' threats to the Vajpayee government, Naidu has not withdrawn support. He is unlikely to pull the rug from under the prime minister's feet in coming months because, as both his aides and Opposition politicians point out, Naidu is the one politician who has benefited immensely from every crisis that has loomed before Vajpayee.

"No other NDA partner has exploited Vajpayee as much as Naidu has done. Naidu has managed to get rice, money and investment benefits as a fallout of every crisis Vajpayee has faced. It is a new political game he is playing, but it is a game without principles and morality," says K Ramachandra Reddy, a local Communist Party of India leader in Hyderabad.

No other partner in the NDA has the knack of influencing and winning Vajpayee over the way Naidu does. So much so, TDP leaders privately call him the most successful political bargainer in the country. Naidu's advantage stems from the fact that the TDP, with 28 members in the Lok Sabha, is the second largest partner in the Vajpayee-led NDA coalition.

TDP leaders claim Naidu has the room to demand the maximum out of the NDA government because his MPs are not ministers in Vajpayee's government. When Vajpayee patched together the NDA government in October 1999, many believe Naidu stayed out of the government because he wanted to bargain on economic matters for the benefit of Andhra Pradesh.

No other NDA partners have received the largesse the Vajpayee government has bestowed on Naidu in the last two-and-a-half years. Listed here are some of them:

• To defuse the crisis the Vajpayee government found itself in when communal riots gripped Gujarat in March and April (this was the second time the TDP threatened to walk out of the alliance), Naidu was pacified with 1.5 million tonnes of rice for Andhra Pradesh. In fact, in the last year, Andhra Pradesh has been the biggest beneficiary of Vajpayee's rice bonanza. Naidu claims he needs huge amounts of rice for the food-for-work programme that his government has launched in the state. Andhra Pradesh produced seven million tons of surplus rice last year.

• When the tehelka.com defence scandal hit the government last year, Vajpayee pacified Naidu by gifting Andhra Pradesh the headquarters of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority office in Hyderabad.

• Among all the states, Andhra Pradesh has been allocated the largest share of funds for rural development. In the last year, the Vajpayee government allocated Andhra Pradesh a whopping
  Rs 2,500 crores for rural development.

• On Vajpayee's instructions, the aviation ministry granted Naidu Rs 545 crores for the construction of a new international airport at Shamshabad, on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

• Naidu lobbied hard and ensured Vajpayee gave an extension in service to his bureaucratic nominee, Cabinet Secretary T R Prasad. The CabSec, who was to retire on July 31, 2001, continues in his post.

• Whenever foreign investment requests reach the Vajpayee government in New Delhi, it is Naidu who picks up the most glamorous companies. Microsoft, for example, set up its India Development Centre in Hyderabad.

• With aid from the Vajpayee government, Naidu also set up the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. IBS is affiliated to the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.

• In this year's Budget, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha considerably cut government subsidies on kerosene, cooking gas and fertiliser prices. But, under pressure from the Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Sinha was forced to roll back to a certain extent from his original decision.

K Yerran Naidu, the TDP's leader in the Lok Sabha, denies the allegation that Chandrababu Naidu has been exploiting the Vajpayee government. "Like every political party and every state government, we have also demanded economic help for the progress of Andhra Pradesh from the Vajpayee government. We have never linked our political support to Vajpayee to corner economic advantages. It is nonsense to say we have been arm-twisting Vajpayee whenever he has been faced with a political crisis," Yerran Naidu told rediff.

The crises brought about by tehelka.com, Ayodhya and Gujarat no longer affect the Vajpayee government's chances of survival. But the TDP has so deftly milked the Centre for cash and kind that it appears it is only waiting for another crisis to hit the Vajpayee government so that it can use it to Andhra Pradesh's economic advantage.