Former Congressman K. Lakshminarayana of numerically strong Kapu community is the BJP’s new state chief.
After the Karnataka Assembly elections, the BJP has now focused its attention to Andhra Pradesh. The national party has appointed former minister and Kapu strongman Kanna Lakshminarayana as its state party president.
Kanna, 62-year-old former Congress leader, wields influence over numerically strong Kapu community in coastal Andhra and is expected to boost the party’s prospects in next year’s general election.
The BJP has made its intentions clear that it wants to grow stronger in Andhra Pradesh, without relying on any allies.
By appointing a former Congress minister as its state chief and playing a caste card like all other parties in AP, the BJP has also conveyed a message that it wants to attract many leaders from other parties in the coming days.
Kanna Lakshminarayana was first elected to Andhra Pradesh Assembly in 1989 and he became a minister in 1991 in Nedurumilli Janardhana Reddy Cabinet and continued till 1994 in Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy led Congress government. He again joined the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy government as agriculture minister and continued till 2009 in K. Rosaiah and N. Kiran Kumar Reddy led Cabinets.
Kanna is one of the many Andhra leaders who had left the Congress and joined the BJP in protest against the bifurcation of the combined Andhra Pradesh in 2014. Kanna was welcomed into the party by BJP president Amit Shah in October 2014.
Since then, the BJP couldn’t utilise the services of many of those who joined its ranks as it was in a coalition with the Telugu Desam Party and had little scope to grow its clout in the state.
Kanna has been a known critic of TDP chief and Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and was unhappy till recently over the alliance between the TDP and the BJP. The former minister and other former Congress leaders like Kavuri Sambasiva Rao, Daggubati Purandeswari, among others, remained sidelined till Naidu pulled out of the BJP led NDA recently.
After parting ways with the TDP, the BJP top brass in April decided to strengthen the organisation in Andhra and made party general secretary Ram Madhav take over as in-charge of the state affairs. The party removed its mild mannered AP president K. Haribabu, Visakhapatnam MP, who is known for his closeness to CM Naidu.
As CM Naidu belongs to the dominant Kamma community and opposition leader Y.S. Jagan is from another powerful Reddy community, the BJP wanted to go for a Kapus leader, who are numerically strong in several coastal and Rayala Seema districts and had been demanding political power for long.
First, former endowments minister P. Manikyala Rao was being considered for the job, but he was ruled out because of his mildness.
The BJP national leadership wanted to appoint someone with aggression from Kapu community as its state unit chief.
Again, two names were considered—MLC Somu Veerraju and Kanna Lakshminarayana. Though Veerraju is an insider and long time associate of RSS, the party finally preferred Kanna to widen its appeal among the people.
Even Veerraju, who initially went into sulking for not being appointed as the state president, told this newspaper on Saturday that he was happy that Kanna Lakshminarayana has been made in charge of Andhra unit.
“Kanna is a senior leader and can lead our party to victory in next year’s Assembly and Lok Sabha elections,” said Veerraju who was made the party campaign committee chairman.
Some in the BJP view Kanna’s appointment as continuation of its experiment in Assam where the party had attracted several senior Congress leaders and won the Assembly elections. “Even in AP too, we are now just four seats and would like to grow in a way we did in Assam and for that, we need a strong leader who has appeal across the sections,” said BJP MLA Vishnu Kumar Raju.
The BJP leaders in Andhra are confident of building the party from scratch after its stellar show in Karnataka Assembly elections.
“Our CM candidate Yeddyurappa might have failed to pass the floor test today, but his resignation is a testimony that we respect democracy.
This development will make people realise our value and help us in the next elections,” said Raju.