The 2024 Lok Sabha elections delivered surprising results, notably through the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) significant expansion in south India. BJP won eight of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, doubling its tally from the four seats won in the 2019 elections.

Analysing BJP’s growth pattern in the state reveals that this success is not due to a sudden ‘wave’ but rather a steady rise through consolidating gains in certain regions and expanding into new ones. As a national party, the BJP also tends to perform better in Lok Sabha elections than in contests for assembly seats in the state.

Where is the BJP winning?

Following the Assembly elections in December 2023, Congress emerged as the leading party in east and south Telangana, while the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), though weakened, remained strongest in west Telangana. The BJP’s best performance in the assembly elections was in the north and Hyderabad regions, followed by the west.

These results were anticipated, as the BJP went into the elections with four sitting MPs, three from the northern region and one from the Hyderabad region. With its stronghold in the north and limitations by other parties in other regions, the BJP’s expansion in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was expected to occur in western Telangana at the expense of a weakening BRS.

The 2024 Lok Sabha results met these expectations. BJP retained its four seats in northern and Hyderabad regions of Telangana and won four new seats in geographically contiguous areas: two in west Telangana (Chevella and Medak), one in Hyderabad region (Malkajgiri), and one in Mahbubnagar in the south. Congress secured eight seats, AIMIM’s Owaisi retained his Hyderabad seat, while the BRS drew a blank.

Explaining BJP’s rise

The results surprised many because, unlike Hindi speaking states, south India is generally not seen as a stronghold of the BJP. So what explains this rise? 

The party has a long-term strategic approach that includes harnessing the organisational might of the Sangh Parivar and creating leadership at all levels via poaching big leaders and recruiting ground-level workers, especially from the numerically dominant Other Backward Class (OBC) communities. 

BJP and its allied organisations have had a presence in Telangana for many years. Arya Samaj and Hindu organisations fought against the Nizam state in the 1930s and 40s. In the 1990s, youth from Telangana participated in Kar Seva for Babri Masjid demolition. ‘Chalo Ayodhya’ stickers could be found on the front doors of houses in northern Telangana. 

Despite this history, BJP’s electoral presence was limited to a few constituencies: BJP had been winning in Secunderabad (in Hyderabad region) and Karimnagar (in north) Lok Sabha seats since the 1990s. 

This changed in 2014.

By forming a government at the centre, BJP became an attractive alternative for politicians looking beyond the BRS and Congress. This was also a time when the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), known for strong leaders and a huge OBC vote bank, was losing ground as it was perceived as an Andhra-based party in a state that had just emerged from a separate statehood movement.

As a result, BJP’s recruitment and consolidation started in the northern region, where it already had a presence.

Leadership and demography 

The BJP promoted firebrand politicians such as D Aravind (son of TPCC president D Srinivas) in Nizamabad and Bandi Sanjay in Karimnagar. Sanjay is a vocal corporator with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) origins. Soyam Bapu Rao of Congress-TDP pedigree also joined the party, giving it a face in Adilabad. 

These promotions paid off. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP not only retained its traditional stronghold in Secunderabad, but also added these three seats to its tally. 

The party continues to attract high-profile leaders: Etela Rajendar, Finance Minister in the BRS government and a prominent face of the Telangana statehood agitation, sought refuge in the BJP in 2021 after quitting the BRS. He contested and won from the Malkajgiri seat in 2024. Konda Vishweswar Reddy, one of India’s wealthiest MPs who moved from BRS to Congress and now to BJP, secured Chevella for the party.

BJP is also trying to portray itself as an OBC party as opposed to Congress and BRS, which are led by dominant castes like Reddy and Velama respectively. Three of the five leaders mentioned above, Arvind, Sanjay and Rajendar, are OBCs and one, Bapu Rao, belongs to a Scheduled Tribe (ST). 

This was also evident in its ticket distribution in the 2023 Telangana assembly elections. Compared to the BRS and Congress, a higher proportion of BJP’s tickets went to OBC communities like the Mudiraj, Goud, Yadava, and Munnuru Kapu.

Hindutva messaging via organisation

While the BJP supported the formation of a separate state in principle, the party did not have a big stake in the movement. National leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh gave statements in favour of a separate state, but the party’s state-level leaders like Ale Narendra chose to move to the BRS (then called TRS) during the movement.

Instead, BJP in Telangana has chosen to be more vocal on the Hindutva identity. For example, the Union Home Ministry under Amit Shah declared September 17 as ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’. This was to commemorate the police action, codenamed Operation Polo, to integrate Nizam-ruled Hyderabad state into the Indian union. In doing so, it tries to portray the fight against Nizams as a Hindu vs Muslim issue and uses this pitch for recruitments.

This is further aided by BJP’s powerful ecosystem. While we do not have an exact number, RSS shakhas have expanded to thousands across several district headquarters and tier-2 towns in Telangana. Sangh-led religious gatherings in villages and towns are attended by people across party lines. 

Its student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, has strengthened its hold on the University of Hyderabad and other state universities. 

The sphere of influence has expanded into popular cinema. Movies like Razakar: Silent Genocide of Hyderabad focused on alleged atrocities on Hindus around Operation Polo, released ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Different vote for Union and state

BJP’s expansion was also likely due to ‘differential voting’ seen in Telangana between Lok Sabha and assembly elections. It is widely acknowledged that voters generally differentiate between different levels of elections. Their choice for central leadership can vary from that of state leadership, as Lok Sabha and assembly elections are fought on different issues. Moreover, since the arrival of Modi, Lok Sabha election campaigns have acquired a more nationalistic character as seen in the focus on the PM face, issues like Pulwama, religion, and central schemes.

In Telangana, where assembly elections are usually held shortly before Lok Sabha elections, the BJP remains a distant third in state assembly but sees higher support in national elections. As seen in the table below, BJP’s vote share rises significantly in national elections in comparison to assembly elections.

Predicting BJP’s further rise

Analysing individual parliamentary seats reveals that the difference in BJP’s vote shares between Lok Sabha and preceding assembly polls (referred to as the ‘differential’ in table below) is also a good indicator of where the party is expanding. For comparison, vote shares of assembly segments are aggregated to respective parliamentary constituencies.

Consistent with the fact that BJP’s enjoys a higher support in national elections in Telangana, the four seats the BJP won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls saw significant voting in favour of the party when compared to the 2018 assembly elections. Additionally, in 2019, BJP also saw a jump in differential votes in four more constituencies, though it did not win these seats. These were, in order of increase, Mahbubnagar, Medak, Malkajgiri, and Chevella. 

These were the same additional seats that the party won in the 2024 elections, taking its tally to eight. Barring a few exceptions, this pattern was seen between the assembly and Lok Sabha elections in 2014 as well.

Therefore, even in seats where BJP does not win, higher differential voting between assembly and Lok Sabha elections indicates the party’s aggressive expansion in these constituencies. 

Similarly, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP consolidated in north and Hyderabad regions and expanded into the west and south. Besides the eight seats it won, the difference in vote shares between the 2023 assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls is most prominent in Peddapalle (last seat left for the BJP to win in north), Zaheerabad (last seat to conquer in the west), Nagarkurnool and Bhongir (in the south). These are the likely seats BJP might win in the next round if it continues to expand.

Political counter missing

As seen in the analysis above, the electoral fortunes of the BJP in Telangana have steadily and consistently improved, even as those of the Congress and BRS have fluctuated. To be sure, this seemingly inevitable rise of the BJP is also aided by the shortcomings of other parties. 

The BRS, once a force to reckon with, lost the 2023 assembly elections. With reduced salience of the regional party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it failed to win a single seat six months later. The BJP grabbed the space ceded by BRS, winning the Medak seat, a BRS stronghold that in 2014 sent its supremo and ex-CM K Chandrashekhar Rao to parliament.

Congress failed to retain Malkajgiri, from where Revanth Reddy was elected in 2019 and which he held until becoming Telangana Chief Minister after Congress’ win in the 2023 assembly elections. According to news reports on the PJ Kurien Committee set up to review the party’s performance, a weak candidate and non-cooperation of party leaders contributed to this loss. Ticket mismanagement was also evident in Karimnagar, where the Congress  fielded a politically dormant candidate from a numerically insignificant community against a popular BJP candidate from the OBC community just two and a half weeks before polling date.

A less obvious shortcoming of these parties is their failure to recognize the BJP as more than just another political entity and their lack of a long-term strategy against it. They do not acknowledge or explore the need for a political counter to the BJP's ideological and organisational momentum. In its absence, the BJP is poised to catch up and surpass them in Telangana.

Garima Goel is a political researcher based in Hyderabad.