The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on July 4, 2023, replaced Bandi Sanjay Kumar with G Kishan Reddy as the new president of its Telangana unit. The decision was taken by the BJP’s central leadership after much speculation and denials. Kishan Reddy is a Union minister for tourism and culture and has been an MP from Secunderabad since 2019. He is also a former president of the BJP’s Telangana unit.
The party also appointed Huzurabad MLA Eatala Rajender as the chairman of the election management committee. Rajender had recently quit the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and joined the BJP.
The changes in the BJP’s Telangana unit come ahead of the crucial assembly elections in the state, which are scheduled to be held in December 2023. The BJP is hoping to make inroads into Telangana, which is currently ruled by the TRS.
There are a few reasons why the BJP may have decided to replace Bandi Sanjay with Kishan Reddy. First, Kishan Reddy is a more experienced politician than Sanjay. He has been in politics for a longer time and has held several important positions, including that of the BJP’s Telangana unit president. Second, Kishan Reddy is seen as a more moderate leader than Sanjay. He is less likely to make controversial statements that could alienate voters. Third, Kishan Reddy is from the Reddy caste, which is one of the most influential castes in Telangana. This could help the BJP to win over the support of Reddy voters.
Despite the possible wrath of Munnuru Kapu OBC community – to which Bandi Sanjay belongs – BJP has made uncomfortable changes in Telangana.
For years now, the BJP in Telangana under Bandi Sanjay Kumar has focused on wooing the Other Backward Class (OBC) communities. In one swift move — which has left both Bandi Sanjay and his successor as state president, G Kishan Reddy, uncomfortable — the saffron party has seemingly shifted focus with the changes it has made to its organisational structure.
The entire exercise of revamping the Telangana BJP unit appears to be more to cut the Congress down to size in the state rather than taking the BRS head on.
After capturing power in Karnataka by defeating the BJP, the grand old party is raring to decimate the BJP in other states as the saffron party is its principal rival at the national level, though it is not in power in the state.
Precisely for this reason, the BJP wants to see the last of the Congress, more than the incumbent BRS, in Telangana.
Change in guard, changing caste calculations
In private, BJP leaders admit that if their party was not going to win the Assembly elections in Telangana, they wanted the BRS to come to power rather than the Congress.
Keeping this objective in mind, the party jettisoned its years-long efforts to win the hearts of the OBCs who are about 57 percent of the population by replacing the incumbent president Bandi Sanjay, an OBC, with Union Minister Kishan Reddy.
The move may have pleased the Reddy community, a dominant caste although their population is only about five percent, as they are annoyed over the rising ambitions of the OBCs for political power in the state.
The Reddys have already been feeling suffocated with a Velama being at the helm in the state, and are pining for the return of “Reddy raj” again in Telangana, which ended with N Kiran Kumar Reddy, the last chief minister of combined Andhra Pradesh.
Against this backdrop, Congress state unit president A Revanth Reddy had said in the past that no one should underestimate Reddys and that for this reason alone, the Kakatiya dynasty had gone into history’s dustbin.
Though he came under fire for promoting one caste, he, however, was successful in sending out a message to his caste people that it was time for them to gird their loins and make every effort to come to power.
Rise of Bandi Sanjay Kumar
Sanjay Kumar, belonging to one of the important BC castes, Munnuru Kapu, managed to get traction over them with his Maha Sangrama Yatra in four phases in 2021, washing the dirty linen of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao in the public. There was turning back after he took over as party president in 2020.
His padayatra added further impetus to the BJP’s growth story which started with M Raghunandan Rao winning the Dubbaka Assembly seat in a by-election in November 2020, followed by the party wresting 48 of the 150 seats in the GHMC elections in December 2020, and, finally, Eatala Rajender scoring a victory in Huzurabad in November 2021.
The BJP, which used to be an underdog in the state’s elections, began looking up. Prime Minister Narendra Modi heaped praises on Bandi Sanjay for the yatra and the electrifying effect it had on the people.
When the BJP brought in Bandi Sanjay, he fit into the party’s scheme of things to a T, which was to gain fresh ground in Telangana by pushing the Hindutva ideology.
Exposed KCR-AIMIM relationship
Bandi Sanjay took the party’s ideology into the midst of the people with a force that surprised everyone, exposing the “covert intentions” the BRS-AIMIM relationship.
He also earned a name for himself as he was a fiery critic of the chief minister, popularly known as KCR, and his incendiary speeches held a magnetic attraction to the youth, who began rallying behind him.
Also, OBC credentials sat well with the party’s overall plans. As, at the national level, the BJP was focusing on endearing itself to the OBCs, Bandi Sanjay was asked to take up the assignment, which he did with elan.
Everything seemed to be going in favour of the party, with key OBC leaders — Bandi Sanjay himself, Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind, Eatala Rajender, and former state party chief K Laxman — leading the charge against KCR.
The along came the black swan — the debacle of the BJP in Karnataka.
The party’s humiliating defeat has made the party recalibrate its strategies for the Southern states, where it has to get more MP seats in the 2024 Parliament election as the indications are that there might be a fall in the number it might win in the North.
Trying to decimate Congress
After the party went down as if pole-axed in Karnataka, its priority was to decimate the Congress so that it would not become a headache by the time Parliament elections arrive next year.
As the Congress is the principal rival of the BJP, its growth, anywhere in the country, is a sight that the saffron party abhors.
Its policy has been to nip the Congress in its bud stage and, in Telangana, the party is beginning to grow green shoots and soon it might bloom as well.
The BJP, after quick calculations, brought in Kishan Reddy as the party’s chief with the hope of cutting into the Reddy votes which have traditionally been with the Congress.
Reddys, the landed gentry of Telangana, though happy with the Rythu Bandhu incentive of ₹10,000 per acre per year, are not comfortable to remain blinded by the “welfarism” of KCR whose “insidious” plan is to keep political power away from them with these “bread crumbs”.
‘Crown of thorns’ for Kishan Reddy
After the announcement appointing Kishan Reddy as the president of Telangana BJP was made, Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind described him as a lucky hand, although there were reports that Kishan Reddy himself was not very gung ho about the “crown of thorns” placed on his head.
It is because he knows that if the BJP did not win the coming Assembly elections, he would have to take the blame and it might affect his chances of being taken into the Cabinet in Narendra Modi’s third innings after 2024, should the BJP score a hattrick.
As the Congress has become identified with the Reddys, Kishan Reddy’s brief is to split the vote so that the Congress would suffer at the hustings.
Also, another factor that weighed in favour of Kishan Reddy was that since he is basically a Hyderabadi, he might help the party pick up a couple of Assembly seats in the GHMC area.
More significantly, the immediate task for Kishan Reddy is to ensure smooth functioning in the state party unit in the wake of rumblings that saw him replacing Bandi Sanjay as state BJP president.
‘Will do as party says’
Kishan Reddy, who curiously remained tight-lipped, without giving any immediate response on his appointment as state BJP president, finally told that he would accept any decision that the party takes for him.
“I am a disciplined party worker and I will go ahead as per the decision of the party,” Reddy told #Khabarlive in Delhi, albeit grudgingly. He added that he would take charge as state president after PM Modi’s rally in Warangal on 8 July.
Kishan Reddy, who had served as state unit president earlier in undivided Andhra Pradesh and later in Telangana, now faces the challenge of ensuring the harmonious functioning of the BJP and preparing it for the big electoral battles ahead.
He has to galvanise the party cadre who are disappointed over the internal wrangling in the BJP, which is otherwise said to be known for its discipline.
Kishan Reddy will also have to work with Eatala Rajender, a popular leader from the backward classes who has his own support base outside the BJP, as well as other leaders who joined the BJP in recent years, and ensure that the party faces elections unitedly.
BJP changes course
As in the past, the BJP, after implementing a grandiose plan of spreading into Telangana hinterland targeting OBCs, has changed horses midstream and is now aiming to cut into the Reddy votes of the Congress.
No prizes for guessing who would have the near-term benefit from splitting Congress votes.
As far as OBC voters are concerned, particularly those belonging to Munnuru Kapus, they may find it hard to vote for the BJP with their leader Sanjay Kumar being removed from the scene.
BC Rajyadhikara Samiti president Dasu Suresh said: “All political parties, including the BJP, are using the OBCs as door mats to remain in power perpetually. They need to wake up to the reality that they have to stop trusting those who make a show of showering affection on them but give their best shot at political power.”
“The ₹1 lakh benefit to BCs being offered by KCR is hogwash. With ₹100 crore, he can benefit 10,000 families at the most and not more.”
It remains to be seen whether the changes in the BJP’s Telangana unit will help the party to improve its chances of winning the upcoming assembly elections. However, the party is clearly hoping that Kishan Reddy’s leadership will help it to make inroads into Telangana and challenge the TRS’s dominance in the state. ■ #hydnews #khabarlive
