How a little constituency in Telangana taught BJP behemoth a bitter lesson

In the days to come, a small constituency in the country’s youngest State will figure in political discussions on cracks in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s poll strategies.

Hyderabad: In the days to come, a small constituency in the country’s youngest State will figure in political discussions on cracks in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s poll strategies.

The discussions will be bitter for the BJP, especially with the failure here to reflect on its central leadership, which got directly involved in the Munugode campaign. The BJP’s central think tank, in fact, had got into the act much before the election, with Central leaders visiting Telangana, one after the other, criticizing the State government and its governance, quite ironic, because the State was sweeping awards on the national level at the same time.

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From Home Minister Amit Shah, who addressed a public meeting in Munugode itself to drape Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy in saffron, to JP Nadda and Nirmala Sitharaman and union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy too, none spared an opportunity to try and show the TRS government in poor light.

Munugode answered them, and the burden of the failure will be more for Shah, whose name also figured in the controversial covert operation to purchase TRS MLAs, another strategy that backfired and how. The fact that the three accused had stressed on getting sitting MLAs to defect before the Munugode by-poll will also make the BJP grimace.

In Munugode, the BJP had left not even one of the proverbial stones unturned, with the TRS complaint to the ECI of a Rs.5.22 crore transaction possibly being just a miniscule portion of the money that was pumped into the constituency, including to bankroll or encourage independent candidates who had symbols resembling the TRS car.

The support given on the national level by BSP chief Mayawati had triggered doubts of the BSP here acting as the B-team of the BJP, with the doubts being confirmed when the BSP candidate went home with over 4,000 votes that the TRS would have expected in its own kitty.

Similar was the case of evangelist turned politician KA Paul, with political analysts pointing out much before the elections itself that the BJP was playing Paul with soft hands, especially after him meeting Amit Shah, all with the ulterior aim of splitting TRS votes.

The fake news factory of the BJP too worked overtime, with several attempts to spread falsehood through social media, a move that the TRS social media cell managed to thwart with success.

Then there were the false promises, including the BJP candidate’s claims on hiking Aasara pensions by getting Prime Minister Narendra Modi involved, and the claims put forth in a ‘charge-sheet’ that the BJP had ‘contributed’ to solving the fluoride menace in Nalgonda. The people of Munugode, however, showed that they were not easy prey.

All this points at how rough the road ahead could be for the BJP in Telangana, with the party having not much of voter support to retain in 2023 the three seats it has in the Assembly.

More disturbing will be the news that internal squabbles are getting louder in the BJP, with many district and constituency in-charges already making known that they were upset with the party policy denying them Assembly tickets.

With State chief Bandi Sanjay reportedly not seeing eye-to-eye with many other senior leaders, and his statements bordering on being reckless and comic, party circles are debating how the party will fight in 119 seats when it could not manage even one Munugode.