BJP working out its LS poll strategy in Telangana to win at least 10 seats: Leaders
A pronounced and sharp campaign is on the cards to drive a perception shift to being the chief opponent in the state to both the Congress and the BRS
With an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabh elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Telangana is enforcing several organisational measures to improve its chances of securing at least 10 seats in the state and increasing its vote share, BJP state president G Kishan Reddy told HT.
Telangana has a total of 17 Lok Sabha seats and the BJP won four in 2019, with the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (formerly Telangana Rashtra Samithi) winning nine seats, Congress three, and the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) one.
“The BJP has already swung in to form booth committees, begun cluster-wise campaigns by the karyakartas, and adopted a distributed-leadership approach,” a BJP state leader aware of the developments said. He added the party’s twin objectives include augmenting its voter base in northern Telangana districts and deploying a greater workforce in 19 other seats where the BJP was a second contender to the Congress in the recently concluded assembly elections.
The BJP’s vote share more than doubled from 6.10% in 2018 to 14.02% in the assembly elections held in November while a sizeable Muslim vote helped the Congress secure 39.40% vote share, up by more than 10% from the previous state election. The severe anti-incumbency factor worked against the ruling BRS that led to its vote share shrinking to 37.35%, falling by nearly 10% since the party gained a comfortable majority in 2018.
Barring the Goshamahal seat in Hyderabad city, much of the BJP’s victories were scored in the northern Telangana districts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Nirmal, Asifabad, and Kamareddy in the November assembly elections. “We are working towards strengthening the organisation in constituencies where our party is weak for want of cadre and an existing voter base to build on,” said P Muralidhar Rao, former national general secretary of the party and current Madhya Pradesh state in-charge.
A pronounced and sharp campaign is on the cards to drive a perception shift to being the chief opponent in the state to both the Congress and the BRS. “We want to ensure the perception of ‘Gulabi Banka’ (slime) sticking to us is wiped off,” a senior BJP leader, who is in the race to contest the parliamentary elections, told HT.
With the BRS relegated to occupying the opposition space in the state, the Lok Sabha election this time around will be projected and fought as a direct two-way contest between the BJP and the Congress, or the NDA and the INDIA bloc, BJP leaders familiar with the matter said.
While a leadership change in the state is currently ruled out, Tarun Chugh, the national general secretary of the BJP and in-charge of Telangana, said the party is looking at a collaborative leadership model by decentralising responsibility to the local leaders.
General secretaries will be named for each cluster and central leaders will visit key constituencies as part of the Parliament Pravas Yojana. “Simple and direct communication about the development work undertaken will see us through. We aim to net more than 25% in vote share in the 2024 election,” Chugh added. The BJP’s vote share in the 2019 parliamentary election was 20%.
To allow the candidates more time to galvanise support in their constituencies, state president Kishan Reddy said the announcement of the candidates will take place as soon as the elections are announced. “Unlike the last time where the BJP named its candidates just two weeks before the election, our internal committee has already finalised leaders for 10 parliamentary constituencies,” Kishan Reddy said.
With the current Congress establishment led by Revanth Reddy contending with issues concerning populism and pragmatism given the fragile state of Telangana’s finances and the BRS looking to reignite its poll machinery, the BJP believes it has ample clearance space to take advantage of the situations in preparing for the parliamentary polls.
“The BJP’s ploy to garner a larger vote share from the OBCs and the SCs by allying with the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi did not yield any results for them in the state election. All their senior BC leaders - Bandi Sanjay, Etela Rajendar, and Dharmapuri Arvind - could not retain their seats. This could be the reason why the BJP is pre-empting a similar situation and pressing its cadre to work early into the Lok Sabha election,” said Koteswara Rao, a political analyst.
