After months of infighting and inactivity over change in leadership, the Telangana unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has finally swung into action to prepare for the upcoming Assembly polls at the end of the year. After two days of hectic meetings with office bearers, ex-legislators, and district committee heads, the saffron party will begin ground work in all the 119 constituencies. Interestingly, while the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is hoping to re-forge its partnership with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), leaders from the state categorically said that there will be no such tie-up in the coming elections.
The meetings over the past few days were held immediately after the BJP’s national leadership appointed Secunderabad MP G Kishan Reddy as the state president. The change was a result of an internal feud between ex-party president and Karimnagar Lok Sabha MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar and Huzurabad MLA Eatala Rajender, who joined the BJP after being sacked from the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in 2021.
Moreover, the BJP which has tilted towards a more aggressive Hindutva campaign over the past four years, may stick to its ‘development’ agenda instead, if party leaders are to be believed. With Bandi Sanjay (seen as a hardline Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh man), now out of the way, it is to be seen if the party will take an aggressive Hindutva approach for the 2023 state elections to take on the BRS and Congress in the state.
“The meeting was held to keep the cadre active. BJP is a disciplined party. We had no presence in Tripura yet we came to power there twice. We will win here in Telangana as well,” said ex-MLC and BJP leader Ram Chander Rao. He brushed aside the perception that the Congress is on a revival in Telangana after the party won the state elections in Karnataka this year.
“There is this new view that the BJP is going down after Karnataka. Congress will be reduced to the third place here,” he told TNM. When asked whether the BJP’s strategy will be to have a more aggressive Hindutva campaign, Ram Chander Rao said that his party “never uses religion as an election tool”.
In the 2018 Telangana elections, the BJP could win just one Assembly seat out of 119 in the state. The only winner was Hindutva mascot Raja Singh, who managed to retain his Goshamahal constituency. The BRS, led by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR), won 88 seats. The Congress and TDP, which formed a ‘grand alliance’ with other parties, could win just 19 and two seats respectively. Subsequently, 12 Congress MLAs defected to the BRS, leaving no opposition in the Assembly.
Ram Chander Rao and other BJP leaders also said that as of now there is no alliance with the TDP on the cards in Telangana. This is in spite of TDP supremo and ex-AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu dropping hints of returning to the NDA. Naidu also met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President JP Nadda in June as well.
While no official declaration was made, TDP leaders from Andhra said that for the 2024 general and state elections, TDP will mostly re-forge its alliance with the BJP and the Pawan Kalyan-led Jana Sena Party. “Until the AP elections are scheduled, we will not come out openly or talk about alliances. BJP has a very bad reputation in AP,” a TDP functionary who did not want to be quoted, told TNM.
He pointed out that the BJP in Telangana will find it easy to wriggle out of the situation as TDP won’t enter the NDA until the AP elections.
Ram Chander Rao said, “In Telangana there are no alliances with any party, including the TDP. It did not come up for discussion. It is for the leadership in Andhra to decide. The TDP’s vote share here has also shifted to many parties, along with its leaders”. Another BJP leader who did not want to be quoted said that a decision to contest polls alone in Telangana was taken about three months ago itself.