BJP banks on Modi’s visit to Telangana for impetus to state unit

Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Telangana to launch various developmental projects in a gap of two days on Sunday and Tuesday, an uneasy calm is prevailing in the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in the state.

Union tourism minister and state BJP president G Kishan Reddy told reporters on Friday that the Prime Minister would come to Mahabubnagar on October 1 to lay foundation stone for various projects worth ₹13,545 crore, including national highway works worth ₹6,404 crore and a multi-product (diesel, petrol, kerosene and jet fuel) pipeline connecting Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh with Hyderabad worth ₹1,932 crore.

Besides, the prime minister would virtually inaugurate new buildings for school of economics, school of mathematics and statistics, school of management and school of arts and communications at Hyderabad Central University, built at a cost of ₹81.27 crore.

Modi would also dedicate to nation a new railway line between Muneerabad and Mahabubnagar constructed at a cost of ₹505 crore that would reduce the travelling distance between Hyderabad and Goa by 102 km, besides an LPG gas pipeline between Hasan in Karnataka and Charlapalli in Hyderabad built at a cost of ₹2,661 crore.

“He would also lay the foundation stone for 50-bed critical care blocks in 20 district hospitals as part of Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure mission. He would also dedicate to the nation Dharmabad-Manoharabada and Mahabubnagar-Kurnool railway lines, besides a new railway line between Manoharabad and Siddipet,” Reddy said.

On October 3, the Prime Minister would visit Nizamabad district to inaugurate projects worth ₹8,021 crore, including a 800 MW power plant built at a cost of ₹6,000 crore at National Thermal Power Corporation, Ramagundam.

Reddy said at both Mahabubnagar and Nizamabad, the Prime Minister would address public meetings organised by the state BJP to kickstart the party’s campaign for the upcoming elections. “We shall explain to the people what the Modi government had done to Telangana in the last nine years before seeking their support to the party for the elections,” he said.

Leaders unhappy with BJP’s poll preparedness

While the state BJP leadership is expecting that Modi’s public rallies at Mahabubnagar and Nizamabad, followed by BJP national president J P Nadda’s visit to the state on October 6 would rejuvenate the party cadre, some of the senior leaders are expressing unhappiness over the lack of preparedness of the party for the elections.

In the last one week, senior party leaders like former MLAs Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, G Vijayarama Rao and Enugu Ravindra Reddy, former MPs G Vivek, Konda Visweshwar Reddy and M Vijayashanti met at least thrice to discuss the goings on in the party and felt that the party was not putting up a serious fight against the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government.

Vijayashanti confirmed that some of the BJP leaders, including her, had been meeting for the last few days. “It is a fact that we have all joined the BJP only with an objective of putting an end to the autocratic regime of the BRS. I have been an activist of Telangana movement for decades and I shall do anything for the people of the state,” she said in a post on social media.

She said they were all trying to create an impression before the BJP top leadership that there was a need to pull down the BRS government. “We shall go all out to achieve the goal,” the actress-turned-politician said.

Another senior BJP leader who was part of these meetings, requesting anonymity, said that the state’s BJP unit, under the present circumstances, had not been able to create the confidence among the cadres that the party could come to power. “We do not have enough strength to fight against the BRS. It is a fact,” he said.

He further said the talk that there was some kind of understanding between the BJP and the BRS had somehow gone deep into the people. “There has been no action against KCR’s daughter K Kavitha in the Delhi liquor scam till now. There has been no attempt by the Centre to order a probe into various irregularities of the BRS government like the Kaleshwaram lift scheme or Dharani portal. What message are we giving to the people, if the centre remains silent?” he asked.

The BJP leaders are planning to visit Delhi soon and meet party central leaders and express their views about the current state of affairs in the party’s state unit. “Depending on the response of the central leadership, we shall take a call,” the BJP leader said.