Shah pulls up Telangana BJP leadership

BJP President Amit Shah, who held extensive discussions with the party leaders at various levels during a day long hectic tour of Hyderabad, was far from happy with the state of affairs and poll preparedness of the party in Telangana.

Instead of any public pronouncements and criticism of the political rivals, Amit Shah’s focus was on the closed door discussions with the leaders of the BJP, RSS and other front organizations to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the party in the State to gear it up for the coming elections.

Amit Shah was visiting Telangana for the first time in more than a year. During his last visit in May 2017 to Nalgonda and Hyderabad too, he had expressed dissatisfaction with the condition of the party.

Sources said that he gave the road map with a target of winning 60 of the 119 Assembly seats in the coming elections to bring the BJP to power in Telangana. Similarly he also focused on the prospects of the party in 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State and gave a target of 15.

However some of the State party leaders were circumspect about the prospects of winning a majority and opined that the party had chance of winning 35 Assembly and 8 Lok Sabha seats only.

Amit Shah’s strategy for the State, evolved at various meetings was centered on a well oiled machinery starting with the booth level committees with dedicated and resourceful workers. That explains his interaction with the Vistaraks or the full time party workers from all the Assembly constituencies. In identifying the constituencies with good prospects for the BJP, special attention was paid to the segments with sizeable minority population. Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency, which is held by the MIM since 1984 without a break, also came up for the special mention at various interactions Amit Shah had. Some of the leaders were of the view that voters can be polarized in constituencies which had large minority voters.

Amit Shah, who landed at Begumpet airport in a special flight in the morning, was taken to a city  hotel in a massive rally of motorbikes with party workers shouting slogans in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Telangana BJP President K Lakshman and other leaders accorded a warm welcome to him. But a large number of party workers mobilized at the airport were in for a disappointment as promised address of Amit Shah to them did not materialize and Shah left the place without making any speech.

His first engagement was a meeting with the State leaders of RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and other front organizations where he reviewed the socio political situation of the state. The recent controversy over the externment of religious leader Swamy Paripoornananda by Telangana government also came up for discussion. Leaders of front organizations told Amit Shah that they will take up the issue with the Governor while the BJP leaders said that they have already met the Governor.

At a meeting of the Vistaraks or the full time workers of the party from all the assembly constituencies Amit Shah assessed the preparedness of the party for the next elections. Sources said that he was unhappy over the failure of the state leadership in forming all the booth level committees. He also expressed his unhappiness over the state leaders not adhering to all the 23 guidelines and confining themselves to only 12 of them in forming the booth committees. The State leaders were functioning as per their own whims and fancies, Amit Shah stated to have observed at the meeting of the core committee and election management committee at the party headquarters.

During the interaction with the constituency level workers some participants complained to Shah about the style of functioning of some of the leaders.

He directed the party to complete the formation of the booth committees in all the constituencies by next month end. He suggested that the pooling booths in every constituency should be divided into four categories of A, B, C and D in accordance with the party’s strength and prospects and in each booth area five workers with smart phones and five with motorbikes should be identified.