The allies, who will be kingmakers this time, are not your garden variety "yes men".

The BJP, which had set out on a mission to bag a majority of the 543 Lok Sabha seats, was stopped in its tracks by a resurgent opposition. After winning 240 seats, the largest by any party, the BJP is still 32 short of crossing the majority mark, necessitating its dependence on allies to form the government for the third time. However, the allies, who will be kingmakers this time, are not your garden variety “yes men”.

The new BJP-led government at the Centre unlike in 2014 and 2019 will have to keep the priorities and demands of its NDA allies in mind.

NDA key partners like Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP, with 16 seats, and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU, which has 12 MPs, have already made their stand clear on several issues that don’t align with the BJP’s agenda. These include reservations for minorities, a review of the controversial Agniveer scheme among others.

Minority-friendly TDP’s chief Chandrababu Naidu had in May reasserted his stance on four percent reservation for the Muslim community in Andhra Pradesh.

“We’ve supported a four percent reservation for Muslims from the very beginning, and will continue to do so,” Naidu had said.

Naidu, who also swept the Andhra Pradesh assembly polls, will take oath as the Chief Minister next week. He had announced a financial aid of Rs 1 lakh for Muslim pilgrims visiting Mecca once the BJP-TDP-JSP alliance comes to power in the state.

After the NDA allies met in Delhi on Friday, Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh told a news channel that the party will focus on creating jobs and uplifting the marginalised sections in Andhra Pradesh. He stressed that the reservation provided to Muslims in the state, a policy strongly opposed by the BJP, will continue.

“It (reservation for Muslims) has been going around for the last two decades and we stand by it. We intend to continue it,” Lokesh told NDTV.

Lokesh clarified that the reservation wasn’t for appeasement, but social justice as the minorities in the state have the lowest per capita income.

“It’s a fact that the minorities continue to suffer and that they have the lowest per capita income. As a government, it is my responsibility to bring them out of poverty. So whatever decisions I take are not for appeasement, but to bring them out of poverty,” the 41-year-old lawmaker from Magalagiri said.

Lokesh, who had embarked on a 3,000 km journey across Andhra Pradesh aiming to engage with the youth under the Yuva Galam campaign, said that for a developed nation “we cannot leave anyone behind”. “We should do it together and there is a great opportunity to do it. It has been the trademark of the TDP, to take everyone together,” he added.

Meanwhile, the JDU, seemingly taking a cue from the BJP’s communal campaign, has also underlined that it will not allow the NDA government at the Centre to target Muslims and other minority communities.

The JDU’s national spokesperson, KC Tyagi, told digital news channel Red Mike on Friday, “While we are there (in power with the BJP), no anti-Muslim, anti-minority campaign will be run.”

On whether the JDU would push for a more secular approach to governance, Tyagi said, “The issues that were used to rake up muck in the elections should be forgotten.”

Tyagi said that the JDU believes in “building a consensus all communities and sects” and that, as part of the NDA government, it would advocate for broader discussions on policies instead of “enforcing them on people”.

In 2016, Nitish Kumar had sought raising the quota of reservation from 50 percent, and said Dalit Muslims and Christians should be provided reservation, like Dalit Buddhists and Sikhs”.

On the subject of the controversial Uniform Civil Code (UCC), Tyagi said that they weren’t “anti-reform” but emphasised that “all stakeholders, chief ministers, political parties and sects should be consulted to prepare a draft”.

The UCC proposes a standardised set of laws for marriage, divorce, succession, and adoption applicable to all citizens. Presently, the personal matters of various religious and tribal groups—except in Uttarakhand and Goa—are governed by community-specific laws, primarily based on religious scriptures.

Legal minds have warned that implementing the code could result in the erasure of personal law practices of minority communities, particularly Muslims, who make up about 14% of India’s population, according to the 2011 census.

The JDU has called for a review of the Agniveer scheme, which it believes had an adverse impact on the 2024 Lok Sabha election results. Tyagi said there is resentment against the Agniveer scheme in several states. “There was a lot of opposition regarding the Agniveer scheme, and its impact was seen in the elections as well. There is a need to reconsider it,” JDU sources said.