Articles
Election to the Legislative Assembly in the Telangana State 30 -11-23 Reasons for the debacle of the BJP
Dt: 1-12-23
Election to the Legislative Assembly in the Telangana State 30 -11-23
Reasons for the debacle of the BJP
Dr T H Chowdary*
· In Telangana there is no largely respected BJP leader who can speak and articulate the philosophy and issues and agenda of the BJP .
· There are four BJP MPs in Lok Sabha one of whom is a Minister and another person is a Member of the Rajya Sabha
· There are three MLAs, two of whom were elected in the bye-elections
· Between these 8 people there has been no co-ordination and each one appears to be an independent leader within his limited following.
· Only Sri Bandi Sanjay from Karim Nagar as the President of the Telangana BJP was carrying on a very well articulated, punching campaign against the mis-rule of the TRS in all his meetings which was very many and were well attended. He was the only speaker. The rest did not appear on the platform. Sri Sanjay was addressing meetings almost every day all over the state despite the others not presenting themselves in almost all the meetings.
· There were no committed and active BJP karyakarthas in villages nor in the towns (contrast volunteers pressed into service paid honorarium of Rs. 8000 per month, delivery of welfare services in AP , all working for the Jagan’s Congress Party . Each one was given Rs. 300 per month for reading the party’s Telugu news daily, Sakshi – about 5 lakhs of government paid party workers )
· At the village level there is no BJP worker informing , instructing , inspiring the villagers about BJP programs, the numerous welfare grants on projects that the central government is funding but the state governments and the ruling party propagating that all the payments are by the TRS government.
· The BJP has no newspaper in Telangana . At least 6 months before elections it must have a daily in Telugu. The Jagruti Weekly in Telugu is of the RSS though it is always propagating the BJP views, programs and agendas . Its circulation is limited - generally unknown to the bulk of the voters.
· Nearly 55% of the population of Telangana is BCs . Sri Etela Rajender ( BC) formerly of TRS who resigned that party and won the bye-election on the BJP ticket in Telangana is the most acceptable leader . He is very articulate and reasonably clean. He should have been projected as the BJP Chief Minister-face .
· Sri Sanjay, president of the Telangana BJP unit and who was almost every day addressing very aggressively public meetings was abruptly replaced by a forward caste person, Sri Kishen Reddy . He is no match to Sanjay. And this replacement happened only a few months before the election. It has seriously disappointed the active fighting BJP cadres.
· Most importantly, Smt. Kavitha d/o the CM KCR was involved in the Delhi liquor case and was interrogated by the ED but she was not arrested . The non-arrest of Kavita made people to believe that there was a deal between KCR and the BJP involving Rs. 500 cr for the non-arrest of the lady. This is a most damaging to BJP’s credibility. If Kavita was arrested, 50% of the battle would have been won.
· The PM Sri Modi and the Home Minister Sri Amit Shah have invested lot of their time canvassing for the BJP in Telangana. They were taken as powerful campaigning visitors, very welcome and popular BJP visitors to the state.
· Students and youth should have been mobilized to visit villages in groups and do the propaganda for BJP especially highlighting unemployment and corruption. The TRS had deployed and supported tens of thousands of students to do propaganda for the separate state of Telangana , the BJP had used the ABVP in a like- manner to expose the corruption of the KCR family and their party as well as the mother-son-daughter Indo-Italian leadership of the Congress, things should have been different.
· Sri Revanth Reddy , President of the Telangana Congress Unit has carried on a most vigorous articulate and devastating campaign against KCR and his family members and their corruption and amassing of wealth and so on day after day with great effect. There was no person in the BJP to match his vigorous and day and night propaganda for the Congress and against the KCR family rule and their corruptions. (706 words)
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