BRS wants to take the wind out of Congress' sails by organising meetings and protests to call out the grand old party's bluff that it had been implementing its poll promises. The BJP, though lagging, is trying to catch up with the major two parties in the state.
Published Nov 29, 2024 | 6:00 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 30, 2024 | 10:06 AM
Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi with Telangana Congress. (Supplied)
A political showdown is on the offing in Telangana as Congress celebrates the completion of one year in government.
As part of the event, the Congress is holding a mega farmers’ conference, the Rythu Sadassu, in Mahbubnagar on Saturday, 30 November.
The BRS, smarting from the 30 November 2023 Assembly poll defeat, seems to be recouping and trying to take the wind out of Congress’s sails.
The Opposition party is organising meetings and protests to call out the grand old party’s “bluff”, specifically in implementing its poll promises.
The BJP is also trying to catch up. Its MPs, MLAs and MLCs look recharged after a pep talk by Prime Minister Narendra Modi a few days ago. It is also drawing up an action plan to steal the Congress’s thunder.
The Congress began the celebrations on 14 November, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister.
The Congress wants to make the most of the first anniversary celebrations to discredit the BRS and its 10-year rule and further consolidate its position in the state. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has been going all out at the BRS leaders.
The latest was his warning that BRS leaders would be jailed if the part deliberately poisoned food served in government schools using the staff who are amenable to the regional party.
Telangana has reported a series of food poisoning incidents involving school students.
Minister for Panchayat Raj Danasari Anasuya alias Seethakka was more explicit in her warning. She said: “The staff who resort to food poisoning at schools would be dismissed from service and those who help them (implying the BRS) would be dealt with appropriately.”
Earlier also, Revanth Reddy warned of jail terms for those who were engineering trouble in the state, in the wake of the violence that broke out when Vikarabad collector and officials went to a village Lagacharla for a public hearing.
Notwithstanding the BRS’s trenchant criticism, the party, especially Revanth Reddy, is trying to cement his position further and that of the party in the state.
Interestingly, he has not been getting much help from his party leaders. Nonetheless, he has been moving forward trying to undo the damage that the BRS has been doing.
For the Congress, the celebration is an important event as it marks a watershed in the journey of the party in the state after its creation in 2014.
It came to power for the first time in the November elections last year and has been trying to keep the promises it had made to the people in the form of six guarantees, besides other assurances like crop loan waiver.
Now that the time has come for the party to review its first year of performance, it is keen to build a narrative that its dream run is continuing and that its policies are taking the state forward.
Already, the party has set the tone for the celebrations with a massive programme at Warangal on 19 November, the birth anniversary of former prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Revanth Reddy said he would focus on Warangal, as it would mean the development of half of Telangana state since the city is the fulcrum of North Telangana districts of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Khammam and part of Nalgonda.
Meanwhile, the BRS has been trying to gain the upper hand over Congress since it lost the elections. It has been trying to retrieve its lost ground in the state while the Congress is redoubling its effort to consolidate the gains it had made in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
The BRS has kickstarted its programmes to counter the Congress celebrations with Deeskha Divas on Friday — the anniversary of the historic fast by former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao in 2009, which the party believes led to the formation of Telangana.
Ahead of the Congress celebrations, BRS working president KT Rama Rao confronted the Congress leadership on the unfulfilled six guarantees and the “attempt loot” in the guise of the Musi River Project.
He sought an apology from Rahul Gandhi for the Congress’s inability to keep its promises.
Though the BRS has been trying its best to put the poll debacle behind, it could not make much headway. The nail in the coffin was its rout in the Lok Sabha elections in June this year. It could not win even one seat and stood small as the cadres began losing faith in the party leadership.
The party began facing the problems any party would while on a downhill slide —losing its candidates. Rama Rao and former minister T Harish Rao were the only two leaders hauling Congress over the coals.
Apparently, to augment the BRS’s firepower, party Chandrashekar Rao is understood to have asked his MLC daughter K Kavitha to take an active role in the party. Accordingly, she is now out in the open defending the BRS and castigating both Congress and BJP.
As she was focused on Backwards Class (BC) welfare before her arrest on 15 March in connection with her alleged role in the Delhi liquor policy scam, she seems to keep it as her focus area.
Party insiders said that she may be given an important position in the party to take up the party programmes besides continuing as the cultural ambassador of Telangana with her Bharat Jagruti (formerly Telangana Jagruti) organisation.
As far as the BJP is concerned, it seems to be getting its act together.
After its MLAs, MPs and MLCs met with the prime minister recently, Union Minister and BJP State President G Kishan Reddy said: “The prime minister has asked us to fight on issues of public importance and take the central schemes into the midst of the people. The state will have a new president in December after the organisational elections.”
The BJP is focusing on attacking the government on the Musi River Project and for not covering all the farmers under its ₹2 lakh crop loan waiver scheme.
The party hopes that the new president, whenever the appointment is, will make the party gallop forward.
It also hopes that the national leaders will visit Hyderabad more frequently from now on to keep the tempo going as most of the Assembly elections in North India are behind them.
For the three parties, the ensuing panchayat elections would be the litmus test. The BRS claims it is in fine fettle and that if elections are held now, it would win a majority number of seats in Telangana,
However, Revanth Reddy said there was no question of BRS growing green shoots again. The BJP is the only party that is lagging in the race to gobble up as much political space as possible in Telangana.
The party leaders said they are reloaded after the meeting with the prime minister. It remains to be seen who is smart and how much in the game of politics.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil).
