Opinion: Despite stiff Congress challenge, how BJP plans to grab low-hanging fruit in Telangana

Opinion: Despite stiff Congress challenge, how BJP plans to grab low-hanging fruit in Telangana

At an internal meeting of the Telangana BJP in April, national general secretary Sunil Bansal expressed confidence that the party could win up to 8 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha election on May 13. Pep talk or overconfidence? A close look at the electoral battles in the 17 constituencies shows that the BJP, which so far saw Telangana as a window of opportunity, has definitely got a foot in the door.

The eight seats the party is confident about include the four seats of Secunderabad, Adilabad, Nizamabad and Karimnagar that it won the last time round in 2019. It hopes to double the tally by registering wins in Chevella, Malkajgiri, Mahbubnagar and Zaheerabad. The interesting part is that five of the eight candidates are imports from the BRS and the Congress and the party’s calculation is that the candidate’s individual heft coupled with the party’s clout and Modi factor would prove to be a potent combo at the EVM.

But is the BJP indeed sitting pretty? Take for example, Adilabad where the enthusiasm for the Ram temple Pran Prathistha and the perception that the BJP in the constituency has helped keep the `aggressive’ elements in the minority community in places like Nirmal and Asifabad in check, is translating into electoral support for the BJP’s G Nagesh. Of the BJP’s tally of 8 legislators in the Telangana assembly, four come from Adilabad constituency, giving them a head start on the ground. The party also bit the bullet when it decided to bench Soyam Bapu Rao who won the seat in 2019. In fact, Nagesh crossed over from the BRS only in March this year, to immediately bag the ticket. While the SC, ST and minority vote is expected to consolidate behind the Congress, the significant Maratha vote in this border district is expected to back the BJP. The Congress has tried to add muscle by inducting BRS bigwigs like former minister Indrakaran Reddy and former MLA Koneru Konappa into the Congress.

Chevella is a 50-50 rural-urban constituency where the flower and vegetable growers rub shoulders with the glitz of Hyderabad’s IT corridor. Both candidates are cash-rich Reddys, Vishweshwar Reddy of the BJP taking on Ranjith Reddy of the Congress. Both incidentally are BRS alumni. While Vishweshwar Reddy was BRS MP from Chevella in 2014, Ranjith Reddy won on the BRS ticket in 2019. The Congress has the advantage of strength of the legislators as four of the seven belong to the Congress and two of the three BRS MLAs are believed to be unofficially helping the ruling party.

But Ranjith Reddy, who is a poultry magnate, would not like to count the chickens before they hatch because there is also opposition from the Congress cadre to him as he is believed to have targeted them during the five years that he was with the BRS. Add to that the organised manner in which prasadam from Ayodhya was delivered to several homes in rural Chevella, has made Lord Ram the X-factor in this election. Vishweshwar Reddy, who is married to the Apollo Hospitals family, kept in touch with the voters even though he lost the last election and his affability worked in his favour. Plus, like Adilabad, Modi is a factor in Chevella.

In Karimnagar, sitting MP Bandi Sanjay distributed close to 5 lakh Ayodhya temple photo frames much before the Model Code of conduct came into effect. But what will go against him is the fact that four of the seven MLAs under Karimnagar are Congressmen and more than the Congress candidate, Rajender Rao, it is district minister Ponnam Prabhakar who has taken this as a prestige contest and is leading from the front. Voters in Karimnagar are therefore comparing the report cards of Sanjay with that of Prabhakar, who was Karimnagar MP in 2009-14. With one lakh Muslim votes in the constituency, an added advantage is that a significant part of the AIMIM in Karimnagar is siding with the Congress. Sanjay is banking on the Prime Minister who is coming to campaign for him for the second time next week, to decisively turn the tide in his favour.

On paper, the BJP is ahead in the race in Secunderabad and Malkajgiri, the two Greater Hyderabad constituencies. This is partly thanks to the kind of candidates who have been fielded by the Congress. Danam Nagender in Secunderabad is still a BRS MLA as far as official records go and comes with the reputation of being a turncoat. However, BRS candidate Padma Rao is no pushover. In Malkajgiri, Sunitha Mahender Reddy is too lightweight a candidate before Eatala Rajender of the BJP as the latter had served as Finance and Health minister in the previous BRS governments. Both Secunderabad and Malkajgiri are also home to people from other states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and the BJP has fielded its leaders like Suresh Gopi and Tamilisai Sounderarajan to woo their linguistic communities.

So has the Congress given up completely in many of these seats? No. On the contrary, constituency-level match-fixing is reportedly on to boost the performance of the BRS candidate in seats where the Congress candidate right now is not ahead in the race. This is to either ensure that the BRS cuts into the BJP votes, thereby helping the Congress, or help the BRS candidate win the election with an assurance that he or she would defect to the Congress after the results.

On the other hand, what happens if the BJP and Congress divide 16 seats between themselves equally with Asaduddin Owaisi retaining Hyderabad? Anything less than 9 seats would be seen as a blot on Revanth Reddy’s performance. That is because the Congress won 64 seats in the assembly elections and mathematically, that translates to nine Lok Sabha seats. A tally of eight would be a huge tonic for the BJP and would make the present crop of BRS leaders wonder if jumping to the BJP ship instead of the Congress would be a preferable option.

It would also bring out the knives for Revanth Reddy given the number of CM aspirants in his Cabinet. To neutralise any such threat, Revanth Reddy has tasked senior ministers with the specific job of ensuring wins in their Lok Sabha constituencies. This is to ensure that the buck does not stop at his table alone and everyone takes collective responsibility for the win or loss.

(Views expressed in this opinion piece are that of the author)