Hyderabad: Will the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) face a difficult regional leader in Telangana here, a similar strategy as in West Bengal to tackle the supremo Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool Congress (TMC)? With former TRS leader Eatala Rajender all wanting to join the BJP, it looks like the saffron party will try to drag in more people in the coming days.
Eatala Rajender’s decision to join the BJP, which confirmed senior leaders of the saffron party Siasat.com, is probably a step to protect himself against the corruption case of the state government against him. More importantly, to fire him was also a move by TRS supremo and K. Chandrasekhar (KCR)’s prime minister of Telangana to silence other dissidents who might have made noise if they had not been checked.
“We expect more leaders to join our party in the coming days. Now there is the vote in Huzurabad, but apart from that all other elections are over. So we have to wait and see. From now on, however, no other MLA wants to defect from the TRS. But there is time before the state election in 2023, “said a BJP leader, who did not want to be quoted.
The BJP leader said that KCR choosing his son and IT Minister KT Rama Rao as a replacement could lead to unrest among many MLAs in the party. ‘If that happens, we expect 10-15 MLAs to leave the TRS. We will then have to see, “he added. It can be noted, however, that the BJP’s plan failed in West Bengal, but despite the mass deviation of the TMC, it won only more than 70 seats, while the TMC won more than 200 out of a total of 294.
Last week, Eatala finally announced his retirement from the TRS (of which he was a founding member) and the state assembly. However, he remained a mother about joining the BJP. Eatala was earlier expelled from the state cabinet by KCR, after which an investigation was instituted against him over allegations of land grabbing. But even long before that, he questioned the leadership of KCR and indicated that all was not well in the TRS and its senior leaders.
More importantly, through Eatala, the BJP also wants to stand up in constituencies where it has not even dropped, despite claiming to be the largest opposition in Telangana. In the 2018 Telangana Assembly polls, Rajender obtained 1,04469 votes, with the congressional candidate receiving 60,604 votes. The BJP’s Raghu Puppala received a meager 1670 votes. In the 2018 state election, the BJP won just one of 119 seats.
After the good election results last year in the larger Hyderabad Municipal Corportation (GHMC) polls and Dubbaka by-poll last year, the BJP was at a new high. However, it could not perform when it mattered most: in the recently concluded by-election in Nagarjunasagar. The saffron party candidate can garner just over 7,000 votes. Nomula Bhagat of TRS won by more than 80,0000 votes, while Congress candidate and veteran leader Jana Reddy received more than 70,000 votes.
“We expect the BJP to do something similar to what it did in West Bengal. As things stand now, however, Eatala will not be able to win its seat on its own. Even Congress is a major player in the constituency, where he received more than 60,000 votes during the 2018 state assembly elections, ” said a TRS leader who did not want to be quoted. He added that the dismissal of Eatala was also a powerful step to tackle the difference of opinion.
A few days ago, local media reports also indicated that TRS MLA and Jagdish Reddy, prime minister for power, are on KCR’s radar. However, the TRS leader denied the allegations, saying Jagdish Reddy was a ‘loyalist’. “The news has also appeared in other newspapers, but I do not think it is true,” he added.
Source: The Siasat Daily