Telugu Desam Party (TDP) – currently the main kingmaker of the new government at the Centre. The coastal state of Andhra Pradesh has given its first indication that a share of new investments in electronics manufacturing in semiconductors and smartphones will come to the region.
Nara Lokesh, the party’s general secretary and son of party president Chandrababu Naidu — who recently won the Mangalagiri assembly seat with a landslide — said, meanwhile, that the TDP was not in the running for a cabinet post in the central government. He mentioned that one of their demands to the BJP is to increase investments in Andhra under central subsidy schemes like chip and smartphone manufacturing.
“There are issues like Amravati, Bolavaram, backward district funds, Visakhapatnam steel plant, bringing various agencies to invest in Andhra Pradesh, performance linked incentives in fab manufacturing, bringing in electronics manufacturing, investments in port sector,” he said during an interview to NDTV. Lokesh said.
In the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, the BJP managed 240 seats — well short of a majority of 272 — with MPs from parties like the Janata Dal (United) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) 16 MP-elections crucial. , Shiv Sena, and Lok Janashakti Party (Ram Vilas).
In the last 10 years, as the BJP gained a single majority in the Lok Sabha, reducing the share of its NDA allies, there was a sense that many such investments had gone to the state of Gujarat.
Just before the start of the Lok Sabha elections, three projects in the chip ecosystem, including Tata Group’s foundry and Micron Technology’s assembly plant, moved to the western state. Several smartphone manufacturing plants, including Foxconn, which assembles iPhones, have moved to states like Tamil Nadu. Together, these two states account for the majority of ongoing and upcoming projects in the electronics manufacturing sector.
When the erstwhile Foxconn-Vedanta chip plant (which later went bust) was shifted from Maharashtra to Gujarat, it caused a lot of political uproar.
A senior BJP leader had earlier told the paper that with TDP now emerging as an important partner, some of these investments could now be channeled to Andhra Pradesh – thereby significantly reshaping India’s electronics manufacturing map.
Apple supplier Foxlink, which makes cables for iPhone chargers, already has a base in the state, which would allow such suppliers to set up shop in Andhra Pradesh. Xiaomi also has a manufacturing base in the state.
