The stunning victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) elections last week has boosted the morale of the Telangana unit of the BJP, which wants to go it alone in the general elections slated to be held in April/May 2019. The party state unit leaders had conveyed to the national leadership of their desire to cut the current electoral alliance with TDP.
In 2014, both the parties contested the polls together and won a mere two of the total 17 LS seats. In the Assembly, TDP won 15 (12 of them since joined TRS) and BJP won five seats.
BJP’s Telangana president K. Laxman told The Sunday Guardian, “We are now riding on the wave of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and don’t need any ally to win in Telangana,” he said.
Non-implementation of some of the promises of the KCR-led TRS government and the 12% Muslim quota are some of the issues BJP is banking on in the state.
BJP president Amit Shah has also indicated his willingness to encourage the party in Telangana. According to a senior BJP functionary in the national party, who wished not to be quoted, the party hopes to win at least eight LS seats and 30-40 Assembly seats in the next polls.
This is based on an internal survey the party had conducted after the UP Assembly results. The BJP leadership considers Telangana a “gateway” to its southern expansion—in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka (particularly in northern Karnataka) and Tamil Nadu too.
At present, the BJP has put on hold its plans to expand in AP as it is in alliance with TDP, an NDA constituent, though it may seek more number of seats next time.
Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu is learnt to have told his party leaders in Telangana to be ready to face the elections without an alliance. Naidu is understood to have told the BJP leaders in New Delhi as well as Union minister Venkaiah Naidu, who belongs to AP, that it would be unnatural to have alliance in AP, but not to have it in adjacent Telangana. For this, the BJP leadership reportedly said that they had every right to adopt different strategies to promote the party as per local conditions.
After his meeting with Naidu, TDP’s Telangana unit’s working president and MLA A. Revanth Reddy called on Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and discussed the possibility of forging an alliance between the two parties. The Congress leaders are surprised over the poll pact proposal from TDP for the first time in the last three decades.
A senior Congress leader from TPCC told this newspaper that he cannot rule out a tie-up between the Congress and TDP as the final decision would depend on the decision of the high command some time later. He acknowledged the ground reality that both the parties are in a weak condition in Telangana after their MLAs (eight from Congress and 12 TDP) were poached by the ruling TRS in the past three years.
Meanwhile, Shah, who is aware of the organisational loopholes of the BJP in Telangana, has told the state unit leaders to pull up their socks and get ready to fight the polls on their own. Shah will be visiting Telangana for three days from 25 May and is expected to take stock of the situation here. “We will come up with more details after our president’s visit,” said Laxman.