Telangana Congress awaits leaders from BJP to reap a rich harvest of Lok Sabha seats

Besides him, the political grapevine says, Adilabad MP Soyam Bapu Rao and former MP Konda Visweswar Reddy are also toying with the idea of changing parties midstream, but there is no confirmation yet.

Also read: Telangana Congress wants Sonia to contest from Indira’s seat Medak

Eatala’s equations

Eatala recently dismissed the reports of switching loyalty as malicious propaganda by the forces that were inimical to him in his own party — people who wanted to push him out.

He said he had no intention of joining any party and that he would continue to be in the BJP, abiding by the direction of its central leadership.

Eatala has been eyeing the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat after he lost the Assembly election. This is because his home Assembly constituency Huzurabad is part of the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency.

However, the BJP cannot accommodate him in Karimnagar as the party’s national general secretary Bandi Sanjay is the sitting MP from there and he has to be renominated.

In fact, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in his tour of Hyderabad on Thursday, 28 December, told the party workers that all the four sitting MPs would be renominated.

The next best for Eatala is Malkajgiri, but he has competition here as well. Senior BJP leader P Muralidhar Rao is understood to be showing a lot of interest in contesting from there.

If the party cannot accommodate Eatala either in Karimnagar or Malakjgiri, he is said to have decided to keep out of the Lok Sabha polls.

But the BJP wants the former minister to contest from Medak, which Eatala is least interested in. The party wants him to seek election from there as Gajwel, which is BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao’s home constituency, is part of the Lok Sabha seat.

The party, in its assessment, finds Eatala as the best for Medak. It believes Eatala — as a leader belonging to the Mudiraj caste of Backward Classes — would have ready acceptance in the electorate.

But Eatala’s supporters say he wants Malkajgiri or he would give Lok Sabha polls a miss as Medak Lok Sabha constituency is BRS’ impregnable fortress.

In the recent Assembly elections too, the BRS won six out of the seven Assembly segments that constitute the Medak Lok Sabha constituency.

The BRS lost only the Medak Assembly seat to the Congress’ Mynampalli Rohit with a little over 10,000 votes majority. Once bitten twice shy, Eatala does not want to burn his fingers yet again.

Against this backdrop, there is a buzz that Eatala might contemplate joining the Congress as it is the toast of the town now.

This apart, the party does not have the right candidate for Karimnagar and it might offer it to Eatala should he decide to join its ranks.

The Congress is on the lookout for a new candidate for the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat as well, because A Revanth Reddy, after his election to the Assembly and becoming the chief minister, vacated the seat.

Also read: How Karnataka leaders won Telangana for Congress

Way ahead for Bapu Rao

Then there is intense speculation that BJP’s Adilabad MP Soyam Bapu Rao might look beyond the confines of the BJP to further his career.

Though he condemned the reports of switching loyalty, it did not end the speculation that he might want to have a change of scene.

In his Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP won a lion’s share of four Assembly segments — Sirpur, Adilabad, Nirmal and Mudhole — while the BRS Boath and Asifabad and the Congress won one: Khanapur. Even then, Bapu Rao wants to test his luck outside of the BJP.

Interestingly, one of the two seats the BRS won was Boath from where Bapu Rao had contested and lost. It is said that Bapu Rao did not want to contest from Boath, his home constituency, and that he fought the election reluctantly after the party took a policy decision that all sitting MPs should contest in Assembly elections.

Bapu Rao has a chequered history. He was in the TRS (now the BRS) and won from the Boath Assembly constituency in 2004. He later joined the Congress and contested the 2014 and 2018 Assembly elections from Boath, but lost both times.

He then switched to the BJP in 2019 and contested the Lok Sabha election from Adilabad. He defeated the incumbent MP Godam Nagesh of the TRS by a margin of 58,560 votes.

When Bapu Rao met the then TPCC president A Revanth Reddy earlier this year to invite him to his son’s wedding, there was speculation that he might soon be joining the Congress camp. That they are friends is very well known, and there were reports that he was about to join the Congress ahead of the Assembly elections.

In fact, it is said that the Boath ticket was kept on hold in anticipation of Bapu Rao joining the Congress.

However, Bapu Rao eventually decided against jumping ship, though he was not very happy with the BJP dispensation for not taking him into the central Cabinet in the 2021 expansion.

Also read: How Congress turned things around in Telangana

Vishweshwar Reddy’s choices

As far as Konda Vishweshwar Reddy is concerned, he might think of changing the colour of his plumes as, at present, the Congress holds irresistible attraction as it is on a roll now.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Chevella on a BRS ticket in 2014, but had a falling-out with KCR and contested the 2019 elections on a Congress. He ended up losing.

With the Congress’ fortunes dwindling since 2019, he joined the BJP as it appeared more promising to take on KCR. But that, too, began cooling off even as the Congress started rising.

The BJP, apparently sensing that Visweshwar Reddy might slip away from its hold, has given out a leak that the party would nominate him for the Chevella seat.

Even the Congress camp is reportedly beckoning him with the Chevella seat. He will have to choose between the two parties.