Fact Check: ABP news bulletin of TDP chief Chandrababu exiting NDA is from 2018, not 2024

Hyderabad: Video and screenshots of a purported ‘Breaking News’ news bulletin by ABP News have gone viral. The video report states that Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has severed its alliance with the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance).

The news bulletin also states that Naidu took the decision to split due to the Central government’s failure to grant Special Status to Andhra Pradesh. It also mentioned that two TDP leaders have resigned from their ministerial positions in the Central government.

In the recently concluded AP State Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, the TDP-BJP-JSP alliance clinched the majority of votes giving the NDA a much-needed boost on the national level.

An X user shared the screenshots and the video and wrote, “After Chandrababu Naidu, can Nitish also play the game? Will two ministers of (TDP) Chandrababu Naidu resign from NDA tomorrow? Chandrababu Naidu broke the alliance with the BJP. The alliance broke up when the demand for special state status was not met.” (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)

Several X and Facebook users have shared the bulletins and the video with the same claim.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is misleading. The viral video and bulletins are from 2018 when the TDP left the BJP-led alliance over the demand for Special Status for Andhra Pradesh.

We conducted a keyword search which did not yield any recent media report of TDP breaking away from the NDA, either at the Central or State level. However, we found the same video report of ABP News flashing the same bulletin, uploaded on March 7, 2018.

According to the report, TDP had severed the alliance with the BJP over the demand for Special Status for Andhra Pradesh.

According to another ABP News report from March 8, 2018, two TDP ministers resigned from the Central government. At that time, TDP had not yet left the NDA.

However, according to an NDTV report of March 16, 2018, a week later TDP walked out of the coalition delivering a huge blow to the BJP ahead of the 2019 national elections.

Almost six years after leaving the NDA over Andhra Pradesh’s Special Category Status (SCS), the TDP rejoined the coalition ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Currently, the TDP is part of the NDA-led Central government and the BJP is a partner in the Chandrababu Naidu-led Andhra Pradesh State government.

Hence, the claim that the TDP exited from the NDA in 2024 is false.