The campaign vehicles are expected to move in all the five clusters into which the party has divided the entire state for campaigning.
Union minister and Telangana BJP chief G Kishan Reddy with party workers after inaugurating the vehicles of the Vijay Sankalp Yatra in Hyderabad on Monday, 19 February, 2024. (Supplied)
The Telangana unit of the BJP is preparing to make an all-out effort to occupy second place in the state by pushing the BRS down in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The party is kicking off its campaign — the Vijay Sankalp Yatra — for Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday, 20 February.
The campaign vehicles are expected to move in all the five clusters into which the party has divided the entire state for campaigning.
According to party sources, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit Telangana after the end of the first phase of the campaign and address a public meeting. The date and place are yet to be finalised.
Setting the tone for the Vijay Sankalp Yatra, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy performed a pooja at the Bhagya Lakshmi Temple in Hyderabad at Charminar — a predominantly Muslim area — on Monday, 19 February.
Incidentally, this was the same temple based on which some BJP leaders floated the idea of renaming Hyderabad to Bhagya Nagar.
Prayed to Goddess Bhagyalaxmi Ammavaru at the Bhagyalaxmi Temple in Charminar, Hyderabad, ahead of the flagging-off of the ‘Vijay Sankalp Yatra’ vans, along with
Hon’ble MLAs’ and St leaders of @BJP4Telangana. pic.twitter.com/ALaMR9v3qy— G Kishan Reddy (Modi Ka Parivar) (@kishanreddybjp) February 19, 2024
After the pooja, Kishna Reddy declared: “We will win all the 17 seats, including Hyderabad.”
Hyderabad is the seat that AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi holds. It has remained his pocket-borough for quite a long time.
Edging him out will be a Herculean task for the BJP or any other party, for that matter.
Kishan Reddy said: “The Muslim minorities also want Narendra Modi to return to power at the Centre.”
After the Congress rode to power in the last Assembly elections in the state, the development has come as a beacon of hope for the saffron party to rise to the second position in the state.
A couple of days ago, BJP national president JP Nadda said at the party’s national council meeting in Delhi that it would come to power in Telangana in the next Assembly elections — five years from now.
He said that the party would plan from right now for its victory in the next Assembly polls in the state.
The party recently scored a victory in defeat in Telangana since it rose from one seat in the 2018 Assembly polls to eight seats in 2023.
“There is no question of not taking advantage of the conducive situation prevailing now for the BJP in Telangana,” said Nadda.
His assertion has not lost its significance on the BJP watchers. The saffron party is planning to push the BRS aside and occupy its place as the main contender for power in the state.
Though the winning margin for the Congress was razor-thin in the recent Assembly elections, the outcome of the polls had taken away the BRS’ sharp edge as it ended up as the loser.
In contrast, the BJP bettered its performance, though the party bigwigs feel that it fell short of their expectations.
The party, which won only one seat in the 2018 Assembly elections, bounced back and won four Lok Sabha sets in less than one year in 2019.
In last year’s Assembly elections, the BJP sprang a surprise by winning eight Assembly seats. But the success came with a pinch of salt: The most powerful leaders of the BJP came a cropper in the elections.
MPs Soyam Bapu Rao (Adilabad), Dharmapuri Arvind (Nizamabad), and Bandi Sanjay Kumar (Karimnagar) lost the election from Boath, Korutla, and Karimnagar, respectively — ironically, to BRS candidates.
Another important leader, Eatala Rajender, lost the election from his home constituency of Huzurabad and also from Gajwel to BRS rivals. In the latter case, the winner was BRS chief and former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
Though these developments are unnerving, the BJP wants to build on the goodwill which it believes is spreading all over the country and ace the Lok Sabha test.
The party believes that the Hindutva tone set by the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya would help the party beat the Congress, and it would be no exception in Telangana.
According to party sources, Vijay Sankalp Yatras would build the necessary ambience for the party to take on the Congress, which is its principal rival now.
With the grand old party also eyeing a majority of the Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, the BJP wants to leave nothing to chance and give its best shot at the elections.
Union Minister Amit Shah had set a target of 10 seats, but the party wants to win more.
The party’s unexpected groundswell in north Telangana in the recent Assembly elections has warmed cockles of the BJP’s honchos.
More so in Kamareddy, where the BJP won — as an underdog — in the fight between two titans. The defeat of KCR and current Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy caused a sensation at the national level.
Also, in several Assembly segments where the Congress won, the BJP ended runners-up, pipping the BRS, which gives the hope for the party to emerge as an alternative to the Congress by the next Assembly elections.
In the 2018 Assembly elections in Telangana, the party forfeited security deposits in as many as 103 of the 115 seats it contested.
Considering the dismal performance then, the recent show was by any standard better. It did well particularly in constituencies in north Telangana, close to the border with Maharasthra and Karnataka.
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