BJP pushes hung Assembly narrative to confuse people

Party sources said the top leadership of the BJP has started re-strategizing its plan for Telangana and is bent upon creating an atmosphere to push the narrative of a hung Assembly.

Hyderabad: Realizing that it did not stand a chance to form a government in Telangana, the BJP leadership is now pushing the narrative of the State heading for a hung assembly to create confusion among voters.

Party sources said the top leadership of the BJP has started re-strategizing its plan for Telangana and is bent upon creating an atmosphere to push the narrative of a hung Assembly. Sources further stated that during the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting on Friday, BJP national president JP Nadda, union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and national organising secretary BL Santosh discussed the issue of a hung assembly at length and made some suggestions to BJP State president G Kishan Reddy and CEC member K Laxman.

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The BJP reportedly has plans to identify at least 25 seats and put efforts to win those and stop the BRS and Congress from getting a clear majority. During the BJP State council meeting recently, Santosh told party leaders that there would be a hung verdict in the next election but the government would be formed by the BJP in Telangana. Sources said Santosh made the comments knowingly to know the pulse of the people of the State and the reactions of the BRS and Congress leadership.

However, sources in the State BJP said the party high command’s plan was not going to materialise as the party was not in a position to cross even single digits, leave alone winning 25 seats in the upcoming Assembly polls. All these narratives by the BJP leadership were being pushed to mislead the people and to create an impression that the BJP was still in the race to capture power in the State, they said.

In the 2018 assembly elections, BRS managed to win 88 seats out of 119 and had a dominant vote share of 47.4 percent, whereas Congress came a distant second with 19 seats, with a 28.7 percent vote share. The BJP managed to win just one seat and its vote share stood at 6.9 percent. In fact, it lost deposits in 104 assembly constituencies.

Moreover, going by the history of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and after bifurcation of the State, the Telugu-speaking population has always given a clear majority to one party. Before the formation of Telangana, people had given a clear majority to either the Congress or the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Similarly after bifurcation, the people gave clear majority to the BRS in Telangana while in Andhra Pradesh, it was the TDP in 2014 and YSRCP in 2019. Hence this time too, the people of Telangana are likely to give clear majority to one party, with the BRS already a front-runner in the race, having declared most of its candidates and launching its campaign months ahead of its rivals, who are yet to announce their candidates completely.