BJP appointed 'prabharis' in all 17 Lok Sabha segments. They are responsible for party events, managing campaigns, and ensuring effective communication between the leadership and local units.
Published Feb 03, 2024 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Feb 03, 2024 | 7:45 AM
Union Minister and Telangana BJP chief G Kishan Reddy. (X)
All hands are on the deck now. Not wanting to be a laggard in its preparations for the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is looking forward to using the best of the favourable conditions to win as many Parliament seats as possible in Telangana.
The party has devised a mantra for its outreach — “visibility at grassroots level”.
Senior party leaders are expected to descend on the state to infuse energy into the cadres for the electoral challenge that lies ahead. The BJP is eyeing 10 seats, six more than the four it had bagged in 2019.
Recently, the BJP appointed its leaders as prabharis, or in-charges, for the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. Their responsibilities include organising party events, managing campaigns, and ensuring effective communication between the leadership and local party units.
Essentially, they play a crucial role in ensuring the party’s presence. They are expected to address issues and strategise for elections.
BJP state president G Kishan Reddy also nominated presidents for four district units — Adilabad, Narayanpet, Jaishankar Bhupalpalli, and Mahabubabad — to shore up the party’s prospects.
These districts were left out in Kishan Reddy’s recent reconstitution exercise.
In Delhi, the party national leadership met Kishan Reddy, Rajya Sabha member Dr K Laxman, party vice-president DK Aruna, former MLA Eatala Rajender, and others, and discussed the party’s prospects in each of the 17 Lok Sabha seats.
Kishan Reddy is understood to have given an elaborate account of the status of the party to Union Minster Amit Shah. Later, party president JP Nadda talked with the party leaders and reportedly discussed the dates for the visit of national leaders to Telangana.
The party is planning to invite to the state top leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, and Nadda, to turbo-charge the party apparatus to play a role in the organisation’s national ambition of winning at least 400 seats in the Lok Sabha elections.
As the party is already charged up all over the nation with the consecration of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, it wants to strike the iron while it is still hot and reap a rich electoral harvest in the elections.
As the air is pregnant with the expectation that the schedule for the general elections might be out by the end of this month or early March, the party wants to keep the machinery well-oiled.
Even before the Election Commission sounds the bugle, it wants to hit the streets with rath yatras, led by national leaders. The idea is to ensure that the party leaders and workers are visible at the ground level.
For administrative convenience, the party has divided the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies into five clusters with each one having three or four Lok Sabha constituencies.
The party has already appointed all its eight MLAs as in charge of the segments and for the remaining constituencies, nominated important leaders.
They are expected to coordinate the campaign. A lack of coordination proved to be the party’s Achille’s Heel in the recent Assembly elections.
Even Amit Shah, during his visit to Hyderabad in December, asked the leaders who do not see eye-to-eye to bury the hatchet and work as one team. He said the party could have won about 30 seats but the party let the opportunity slip through its fingers.
The party, on the other hand, is also busy looking for potential candidates to contest the elections. It may renominate Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, and sitting MPs Dharmapuri Arvind and Bandi Sanjay Kumar from Secunderabad, Nizamabad, and Karimnagar, respectively.
It appears the party has second thoughts on fielding sitting MP Soyam Bapurao from Adilabad. The party is reconsidering his candidature in the wake of his controversial comments in the past that he had built his house and performed his son’s wedding with constituency development funds.
He is also suspected of having friendly relations with Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy. though the former had denied it.
The party is also keeping its powder dry to attack the BRS and the Congress. The party may target the grand old party over the delay in referring the “irregularities” that allegedly took place in the Kameshwaran Lift Irrigation Scheme to the CBI and also the poor progress in delivering on its six guarantees.
The BJP is also planning to target the BRS over its “anti-people” policies when it was in power. The party will elaborate on the “path-breaking” welfare schemes of the Union government.
