BJP president Amit Shah has time and again reiterated that the party with a difference will come to power. The most recent assertion came at the party’s youth convention in Secunderabad on Sunday.
The party seems to be making desperate attempts to expand its base and increase its tally from the present 5 MLAs. The two decisions that point to this reality are: First, the tacit understanding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao seem to have on several issues, which is expected to work for the December 7 State Assembly polls too.
Second, the induction of Swami Paripoornananda into the party and projecting him as a campaign face. By falling back on its Hindutva plank, it’s signalling that the focus on expansion of its base is indeed small and not the entire 10 districts of Telangana.
These two developments are contrary to the original plan of the party president’s project launched in 2014 to grab power in States including Telangana.
What analysts say
The probable realities of Lok Sabha elections in 2019, where the BJP might have to fall back on regional parties for support to continue its rule has led to this adjustments, say analysts.
While surprising opposition with a list of names of 105 candidates on September 6, Telangana Rastra Samithi (TRS) chief KCR left out all the 5 seats held by the BJP in Hyderabad and neighbourhood thus, leaving no doubt about the emerging alignments. The TRS already enjoys the support of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen , which is strong in the old city.
Buttressing this ‘politics of mutual adjustments’, the top leadership of the BJP, including Amit Shah, and Rajnath Singh descended in Secunderabad’s parade grounds for two days to raise the pitch of its campaign. Incidentally, the BJP is strong in this part with Bandaru Dattatreya being the sitting Lok Sabha MP and NVVS Prabhakar an MLA from Uppal. The party has put up its MLC, N Ramchander as a candidate also from Malkajgiri and is hoping to win more seats in the city this time.
A striking feature of the BJP campaign is also its concentration of holding meetings in its strongholds, thus in a way self limiting its big ambitions. Amit Shah kickstarted the Party from Mahbubnagar on September 15. He addressed meetings in Karimnagar on October 10 describing KCR’s fear of Modi in 2019 as urgency for early elections and claiming that NDA Government gave huge funds for Telangana development.
In 2016, Amit Shah visited the State and announced that the Party will expand, attract prominent personalities from different fields and annex power in 2019. Despite best efforts the project does not seem to have made much headway. It is abundantly clear that the Party can’t find good candidates who can put up a fight in more than half of the total 119 Assembly seats. In line with this, the Party announced the first list of 38 last week.
Is Paripoornananda the Yogi Adityanath of Telangana
Who is Swami Paripoornananda? For the uninitiated, he is the pontiff of the Sree Peetham in Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. He shot to fame recently when the police banned his entry into Hyderabad on grounds of his making provocative speeches. He later got a court stay.
Having joined the BJP with the direct blessings of Amit Shah in New Delhi, the Swami is set to don an important face of campaign in not just Hyderabad, but entire Telangana. Will he also contest is a matter of ripe speculation.
The saffron clad, 45 year old Swami, who is a vocal supporter of a Ram temple in Ayodhya is expected to sharpen the Party’s campaign in the urban areas with his hindutva brand a la Yogi Adityanath style and also to attract the sizeable number of voters who have their roots in Andhra Pradesh.
The BJP is handicapped with the shortage of mass leaders and its known leaders like M Venkaiah Naidu ( now Vice President), Bandaru Dattatreya (former Union Minister) have little role this time. It’s State President K Laxman, his predecessor Kishan Reddy are predominantly Hyderabad centric. P Murlidhar Rao, National General Secretary, who hails from Telangana is still ‘building strength’, having been away for over two decades, and yet to be a force in the districts.