BJP national president Amit Shah’s three-day visit to Telangana from Monday is being keenly watched by Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), as it may have a serious impact on the political situation in the state, which will face both the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Shah’s visit comes against the backdrop of reports that several senior leaders from different political parties, especially the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), would be joining the Bharatiya Janata Party. However, senior BJP leaders told The Sunday Guardian that Shah would not be admitting any leaders from other parties during this visit, as it is restricted to the party’s outreach drive.
Shah, as per the schedule received by the BJP state office here, will arrive in Hyderabad on Monday morning and proceed to a village, Keratpally, in Nalgonda district, which is located 100 km away. He will interact with the villagers and explain to them the initiatives launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre in the past three years.
Shah will dine with a Dalit family and spend the night in the village. On Tuesday morning, he will proceed to another village near the world famous Nagarjunasagar reservoir and interact with people there. He will dine with possibly another Dalit family and spend the night in the village.
Shah will leave for Hyderabad on Wednesday afternoon and interact with BJP workers from the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency at a hall in the Karwan Assembly segment. The BJP’s Telangana unit is making efforts to see that representatives from all polling booths of the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat, which is represented by AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, are present at Shah’s meeting. Shah will go to Vijayawada on 25 May, that is Thursday.
BJP’s president of the Telangana unit, K. Laxman told this newspaper that Shah’s visit was part of his drive to strengthen the party in around 120 Lok Sabha seats across the country, where it has a good chance of winning in the next Lok Sabha elections. “Shah is on a nationwide tour, which is part of the BJP’s outreach with the masses. Shah will also explain the achievements of PM Modi’s three-year rule.”
However, BJP sources said that efforts are underway to enlist the support of a large number of leaders from other parties in the coming months. A team of senior leaders led by BJP’s Lok Sabha member from Bidar, Bhagwanth Khuba is in touch with several senior Congress and TDP leaders in Telangana for the past few months. Khuba personally called on many of them.
The BJP leadership in Delhi is aware of its organisational weaknesses in Telangana, where it won just one Lok Sabha seat—Bandaru Dattatreya’s Secunderabad seat. The BJP is often ridiculed by TRS leaders that it cannot even find candidates for all of Telangana’s 119 Assembly and 17 Lok Sabha seats, if it wants to contest them.
To fill this gap, Khuba and his team have launched an initiative to expand the party by bringing in seniors from other parties, sources in the BJP said. Khuba has met prominent former Congress ministers Sabita Reddy, Sunitha Lakshma Reddy, D.K. Aruna, D. Sridhar Babu, P. Sudharshan Reddy and TDP MLA Babu Mohan, among others, in the last few weeks.
Reports are that senior TDP leader and MLA, A. Revanth Reddy, too, is in touch with BJP leaders and is keen on joining the party. As BJP has made it clear that it would like to go it alone in Telangana, though it is an electoral ally of the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, many TDP leaders from Telangana are exploring their chances with the BJP.
These developments are being keenly watched by Chief Minister KCR, who is leaving no stones unturned to register a better victory in the 2019 elections. Presently, the Congress with 15 MLA is perceived to be the main rival of TRS, though it has lost seven of its MLAs to the ruling party. TDP is a marginalised force in Telangana, as 12 out of its 15 MLAs have joined the TRS.
Any large scale exodus from Congress into the BJP would benefit the TRS. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged on Thursday that the BJP was wooing his party leaders with the promise of prime posts. However, the charge was denied by BJP’s K. Laxman, who said that many Congress seniors were in touch with his party on their own.
TRS leaders are also keenly observing the course of Shah’s visit to find if any of their own leaders too are interested in joining BJP. The TRS, which won 63 out of Telangana’s 119 Assembly seats in 2014, is now an overcrowded party, with dozens of MLAs from other parties having joined it subsequently. As a result of this, several lower rung TRS leaders will find it difficult to get tickets in the next elections.
Although Shah is limiting his visit to only two villages in one district, Nalgonda, both the TRS leadership and the intelligence wing of the state police are keeping a close watch on those who call on the BJP president. BJP leaders who are coordinating Shah’s visit said that there may not be any admissions into the party next week.
Shah was originally scheduled to visit Telangana for two days from 7 April, but the visit was cancelled at the last minute because of a meeting of NDA allies in New Delhi. As Shah did not come, different meetings for the party’s week-long activities concluding on 14 April in Telangana, were watered down. Many Union ministers who were supposed to address the meetings stayed away.