K’taka verdict drives Telangana parties to change poll strategy

Hyderabad

The outcome of the assembly elections in Karnataka has changed the political dynamics in Telangana, with all the three major contenders – the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- changing their political strategies in the run-up to the assembly polls in the state scheduled later this year.

For the last one year, the BRS led by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, which had virtually decimated the Congress reducing it to a single digit in the 119-member state assembly, had been focussing on attacking the BJP, which has emerged as a potential threat to the ruling party.

The BJP, which had won four Lok Sabha seats in 2019 general elections, gave the ruling party a run for its money in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections held in December 2020 by winning 48 seats in the 150-member corporation as against 56 seats of the BRS.

The BJP also dealt a shock to the BRS by winning by-elections to two assembly seats – Dubbak and Huzurabad -- in the last two years. Added to this, the aggressive campaign launched by BJP state president Bandi Sanjay through his padayatra and various agitations has created an impression that the party is the front-runner for power in the coming assembly elections.

That was precisely why KCR chose to convert his Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) into BRS and has been attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi aggressively. “Though the general impression being created by the party is that KCR is looking for a role in national politics, his primary objective of attacking the BJP and Modi is to come back to power in Telangana for a third time,” political analyst Suresh Dharur said.

However, after Karnataka assembly elections wherein the Congress posted a resounding victory, there is a change in the tone of KCR and his party leaders. The Congress victory in the neighbouring state has boosted the morale of the party in Telangana, while that of the BJP has gone down.

Apparently realising that it is the Congress, not the BJP, which may be a threat to the BRS, the chief minister and his party colleagues have gradually started stepping up attacks on the Congress. “The Congress has failed to develop Telangana despite ruling the state for several decades. One cannot hope it will do anything good for the state in future. We shall not take Karnataka elections seriously,” KCR said at a hurriedly convened meeting of the BRS state executive on May 17, two days after the Karnataka election results.

KCR’s cabinet colleagues like T Harish Rao and G Jagadish Reddy have also been attacking the Congress whenever there is an opportunity. “PCC chief A Revanth Reddy has no moral right to talk about Telangana, as his party had sought to crush the movement for separate state,” Reddy said on Monday.

The Congress has got the much-needed boost after the Karnataka elections. The Telangana PCC chief extended an open invitation to senior leaders, who had defected from the Congress to the BJP, to return to the Congress fold.

Speaking to reporters last week, Revanth Reddy said leaders like G Vivek, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy and Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy had quit the Congress in a fit of emotion. So was the case with former minister and BRS leader Eatala Rajender. “They have no faith in the BJP’s ideology but defected to that party due to political compulsions,” he said.

The PCC chief said those who wanted realignment of forces against KCR should come back to the Congress.

The BJP, which was expecting an exodus of Congress leaders before the elections, noticed that they are now in second thoughts after Karnataka polls. “I tried my best to bring leaders like former MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and former Congress minister Jupally Krishna Rao into the BJP by holding negotiations with them, but they tried to do reverse counselling, asking me to join the Congress,” former minister and BJP legislator from Huzurabad Eatala Rajender told reporters on Monday.

A Congress leader who pleaded anonymity said Revanth Reddy is also planning to consolidate the anti-BRS and anti-BJP votes by negotiating with other parties like Bahujan Samaj Party and YSR Telangana party for a possible alliance.

On Monday, YSRTP president Y S Sharmila met with Karnataka Congress president and deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar at his residence in Bengaluru, a second such meeting in the last 10 days. Though Shivakumar’s office said it was just a cordial meeting between the two leaders and did not divulge any details, it led to the talk that Sharmila might be looking for an alliance with the Congress.

PCC working president Mahesh Kumar Goud welcomed the meeting of Sharmila with Shivakumar. “It is a good development. Any secular-minded leader can have a meeting with top Congress leaders,” he said.

The Telangana BJP, too, changed its strategy post-Karnataka elections. It has realised that the Hindutva card which did not fetch seats and votes in Karnataka would not work even in Telangana.

Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay, who doesn’t lose an opportunity to kick up Hindutva passions and attack All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), has suddenly started talking about uplift of OBCs and Adivasi issues.

On Tuesday, Sanjay announced the constitution of a task force to study the issues pertaining to weaker sections and submit a report to the party so that it could incorporate the same in the party manifesto.

Last week, Sanjay held an OBC Sammelan in Hyderabad and called upon the party workers to reach out to the backward classes and appease them to vote for it. The party adopted an OBC Declaration at the meeting, stating that the BJP would allocate a separate budget for the OBCs, if the party is voted to power.

The party also announced provision of statutory status to BC Commission, which is teethless now, and see that it would be given all powers. The BC Declaration also included extension of unlimited financial assistance to all the BC students on a saturation basis to enable them to go abroad for higher studies.

“The three parties were hitherto groping in the dark to find the right formula to impress upon voters but they got a cue from Karnataka results,” said another political analyst Ramu Suravajjula.

He said in a way, the emphatic verdict of Karnataka voters against the BJP brand of politics gave a voice to the feeble secular and democratic forces in Telangana too. “For the first time in recent times, Telangana political parties have gone for a quick course correction based on the verdict in the neighbouring state,” Suravajjula added.