There will no separate manifesto or special assurances for Telangana from the BJP side during this Parliament election and the party expects the just released national manifesto or ‘Sankalp Patra’ to have a resonance with respective State units and asked to propagate it day in and day out till the polling day.
It has been nearly a month since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took out a roadshow at Malkajgiri, the largest Parliamentary constituency in the country, along with State BJP president G. Kishan Reddy and contesting candidate, former Minister (under BRS government) Eatala Rajender. Ever since, there has been a kind of lull with the selected candidates busy campaigning on their own.
Party sources say that the next big public meetings will be held only after the first two phases of polling is completed by the month-end. Nominations for Telangana will also be completed by then leaving about a fortnight or so for an intensive campaign.
“A clear picture on the campaign by Mr. Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and others will emerge after April 25 only. National leaders will be present for each candidate during nomination rallies. In the meantime, our people contact programmes will continue explaining the Centre’s development and welfare schemes as well as the Congress government’s failure to implement ‘guarantees’ within 100 days,” they said.
The saffron party has been quick off the blocks in choosing party candidates for the 17 parliamentary constituencies with 14 among them being either “newcomers” or “turncoats” including nine from the BRS, a party which had lost the Assembly elections to the Congress party just four months ago.
Whether changing party colours will help these leaders come up trumps is a million dollar question. Clearly, the BJP is unable to digest the Congress party’s victory in Assembly elections. “We fought against KCR and his family, but the Congress party has come to power,” is an oft heard complaint from top leaders including Mr. Kishan Reddy and dethroned State chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar, now trying to repeat his victory from Karimnagar.
Only solace is Congress being denied a bigger majority though the BJP may have lost out in the numbers it wanted. Whether any post-mortem was done for the Assembly elections is not known but interestingly, no big leader has been made election or campaign incharge like the roles played by former Union Minister Prakash Javadekar and former BRS Minister Eatala Rajender.
Rajya Sabha MP K. Laxman has been heading the election committee sans any fanfare and hitherto unknown Karnataka MLA Abhay Patil has been made election in-charge. The regular flight of leaders like general secretaries Tarun Chugh, Sunil Bansal and others to the State office has drastically come down of late. Fact is, the party candidates seem to be totally dependent on the Modi charisma and pull. Even Mr. Reddy and Mr. Sanjay Kumar are staying put in their respective constituencies without venturing out as the party did not fare well in the Assembly segments of their respective constituencies in the Assembly election.
Selecting mostly turncoats ignoring time tested veterans has also been leading to coordination issues between the cadre and the leadership. That makes the party’s plan to double its number to eight this time quite a task.
