BJP surprise likely in Telangana as Cong weakens BRS

In Telangana, the fight will primarily be between Congress and BJP. Telangana BJP will have its cake and will eat it too if the current trend continues. But there is nearly one more month to go before Telangana votes for Lok Sabha seats on May 13. One month is a pretty long time in politics. It’s to be seen what kind of strategies Revanth Reddy and his team will draw up to check saffron surge and restrict it to second place in Telangana

Telangana is relatively a small State with 17 Lok Sabha seats when it comes to the General Elections. So, it may not make much of a difference to the Indian National Congress (INC) at the national level even if the grand old party wins more than 10 seats in the country’s newest State. For, Congress will have to shine across India to be in the reckoning for power at the Centre. But the tally of more than 10 seats in Telangana will make much difference to Anumula Revanth Reddy, the newly-anointed Congress Chief Minister as such a feat will help him consolidate his and the party’s position in the State.

That seems to be the reason why he has opened the gates for leaders from other political parties, especially Bharat Rashtra Summit (BRS). It’s doubtful whether such strategies will strengthen the grand old party, but Reddy’s concerted efforts to weaken the BRS seems to be backfiring as while some pink party leaders are making a beeline to Congress, the voters who supported BRS in the Assembly polls seem to be shifting their loyalties to the saffron party.

As per current ground realities, Congress is on a sticky wicket in several seats, including Chevella, Malkajgiri, Secunderabad, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Zaheerabad, Karimanagar, Medak and Mahabubnagar. Being weak in Mahabubnagar parliamentary constituency should come as a big shock even for ardent supporters of Congress given that Reddy’s Assembly seat Kodangal is part of this Lok Sabha constituency. Moreover, the Congress nominees won all seven MLA seats - Narayanpet, Mahabubnagar, Jadcherla, Devarkadra and Shadnagar besides Kodangal - in the constituency in the recent Assembly elections.

Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy, who is in the fray on a Congress ticket, came third polling 20 per cent votes in 2019. His BJP opponent DK Aruna, who is also contesting this time, was second with a vote share of 34 per cent last time. BRS, which won the seat, retained incumbent Manne Srinivas Reddy, but it lost considerable ground as was evident in the Assembly polls.

Is Vamshi Chand Reddy weak or is the BRS loss turning into a BJP gain? Or is there a sympathy factor favouring Aruna? Either way, it will be a major jolt to Revanth Reddy if Congress loses this seat. But then, he is not the kindto give up easily.

However, BJP seems to be gaining traction not only in Mahabubnagar but also across seats due to various reasons.

Apart from a weakened BRS, the Narendra Modi factor is also playing a decisive role. In the 2018 Assembly polls, BJP secured nearly seven per cent votes and one MLA seat. But in the Lok Sabha elections held six months later, the BJP nearly tripled its vote share to 19.45 per cent and secured four MP seats primarily because of the Modi factor. In the recent Assembly polls, BJP doubled its vote share to 14 per cent from seven per cent five years back. It also increased its MLA seats to eight from one in the same period. If the similar three-fold arithmetic works out for the saffron party between Assembly and Lok Sabha polls like the last time, its vote share will have to jump to 42 per cent in 2024. That’s a tall order, but it’s no exaggeration to say that BJP is witnessing a rapid surge in its support level. Besides, clinching the Kamareddy Assembly seat has elevated its image in Telangana.

In a spectacular instance of David felling Goliath showing, BJP candidate K V Ramana Reddy pulled off the biggest surprise when he defeated two heavyweights in one stroke-incumbent chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his to-be successor A Revanth Reddy. Further, the aspirational young generation influenced by Modi’s talk of development and Viksit Bharat 2047 is rallying behind the saffron party.

But the moot question is why the Congress is on the backfoot just three months after it rode to power dethroning a two-time elected government? Is the Revanth Reddy government not up to the mark? One must acknowledge that Reddy has done a fairly good job as the Chief Minister in that short period. His government implemented free power, free bus travel for women and a few other promises. Perhaps, people must be expecting more from his government. Lest one forgets, there are shortcomings as well.

For instance, the inaccessibility of former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao was one of the key issues in the 2023 Assembly polls. Therefore, Revanth Reddy, even before he was sworn in as CM, had got iron barricades around Pragathi Bhavan dismantled. Pragathi Bhavan was the official residence of Rao. Revanth Reddy renamed it as Jyothi Rao Phule Praja Bhavan and started Praja Vani (voice of people) to accept representations from the general public and address their grievances immediately. It is a different thing altogether that neither the Chief Minister nor his cabinet colleagues are attending the programme! Can’t they spare a couple of hours a week for people who have voted for their party?

Further, the revival of visiting hours at the Telangana Secretariat has turned out to be a big farce as heads of departments and ministers are rarely accessible in their chambers during those hours. The Congress government should walk the talk. No political rhetoric will help as there is an increased awareness among voters.

Recently, I was talking to a small-time businessman involved in building materials in Hyderabad. He said that his business hit a slow lane as there was a significant slowdown in real estate. When I asked him the reason for the slowdown, he simply blamed the Congress government. There is a widespread narrative of blaming Congress for every problem such as the water crisis and power shortage. The State government has not done anything to address this. Further, the Congress government has fallen into a trap that most political parties do these days. That’s the ‘manifesto trap’. The fact of the matter is that not all people vote for a political party based on a manifesto. Barring a few major promises, people don’t even remember what a political party has offered. Post the elections, the winning political party should correctly diagnose why it has been voted to power in the first place. That way, it can gauge people’s expectations and govern accordingly. Simply implementing a manifesto won’t do the trick in the next elections.

To say that BRS is in the doldrums is an understatement. Ignominious defeat in recent Assembly polls, large-scale desertions of leaders, phone-tapping case, Medigadda barrage issue and the arrest of Kalvakuntla Kavitha have taken a heavy toll of the pink party. As a consequence, BRS is likely to put up some fight in just one or two reserved seats this time. So the fight will primarily be between Congress and BJP in the upcoming General Elections.

The Telangana unit of BJP will have its cake and eat it too if the current trend continues.

However, there is one more month to go before Telangana votes on May 13. One month is a pretty long time in politics. It’s to be seen what kind of strategies Revanth Reddy and his team will come up with to check the saffron surge and restrict it to the second place in Telangana.