Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu has asked his party men to be ready for the Parliament and state assembly elections and set the target of winning all the 25 Lok Sabha and 175 assembly seats.

Naidu, who held a teleconference with the party leaders on Wednesday, said he would announce the names of the party candidates well in advance so they could get sufficient time.

“Whenever the elections are held, we should be ready to face them”, he said. “We will win the elections on the basis of our good work”. The development work in the state during last five years was unprecedented and no other state could claim such progress, he claimed.

The elections to the state assembly are due along with the Lok Sabha before May 2019. “There is pro-incumbency wave in the state and it should be further strengthened,” he said.

Referring to the statement of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi that he would campaign in Andhra Pradesh on behalf of his friend Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy of YSR Congress, Naidu asked, “since when Owaisi became Jagan’s friend. Was it arranged by Narendar Modi?”

He also ridiculed the claims that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was trying to form a third front at the national level. “A third front will be nothing but a help to the BJP from the backdoor”, he said.

Naidu wondered why YSR Congress was celebrating in Andhra Pradesh over the victory of KCR’s Telangana Rashtra Samiti in the neighbouring state.

He also lashed out at KCR saying he stoked the regional feelings in the elections after UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi promised to give special category status to Andhra Pradesh at Medchal meeting.