BJP’s bus yatra plans in Telangana shelved amid coordination issues: central leadership steps in

State BJP chief and union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy was supposed to kickstart the bus yatra from Basara. Lack of coordination among the senior State leaders was touted to be the reason behind the cancellation.

Hyderabad: Nothing appears to be working for the BJP in Telangana as far as poll preparation is concerned. The much talked about bus yatra of the party scheduled to begin on September 26 has been reportedly cancelled by the party central leadership on account of lack of coordination among the senior State leaders.

The BJP was to begin a bus yatra simultaneously from three locations, State BJP chief and union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy was supposed to kickstart the bus yatra from Basara, while party election management committee chairman and Huzurabad MLA Eatala Rajender was to begin his yatra from Bhadrachalam and party national vice president DK Aruna from Somasila in Mahabubnagar district on September 26.

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Party sources confde that the central leadership was not that enthusiastic about the bus yatra and had reportedly asked Kishan Reddy to put it on hold for the time being. In turn, he was asked to concentrate on strengthening the party at the booth level. It was learnt that the party decided to postpone the bus yatra due to lack of coordination among the senior party leaders. The party had held a few meetings to finalise the route of the bus yatra and had even discussed on the leaders to take part in it.

Sources said union Home Minister Amit Shah had expressed his dissatisfaction over the state of affairs among senior leaders and directed them to improve coordination. Sources said Amit Shah had reportedly advised them to cancel the bus yatra and instead work on strengthening the party at grassroots levels and improving coordination among seniors. Amit Shah was in Hyderabad to participate in the ‘Telangana Liberation Day’ celebration organised by the Centre.

Following the latest decision to put on hold the bus yatra, the BJP national general secretary and State in-charge Sunil Bansal asked the State leaders to utilise the same yatra period between September 26 to October 14 to strengthen the booth level committees in all the 119 assembly constituencies.

Interestingly, when the media tried to know the reason behind the bus yatra cancellation, senior leaders claimed that the party had never officially announced the bus yatra and that it was only a media creation. “Did we ever officially announce that we are going to take out a bus yatra? It’s the media which is talking about bus yatra. We said it was only a proposal. We never announced any date or venues,” a BJP leader asserted.