Telangana: BJP plans to squeeze political mileage out of Ram Temple

The party is planning to use Ram Bhakts as emissaries to ensure that a majority of the Hindu voters vote for its candidates in the Lok Sabha polls

Hyderabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Telangana is all set to ramp up its Lok Sabha poll campaign, which it plans to hinge on Hindutva and the Ram Temple in Ayodhya to attract the majority community into its fold. The BJP State leadership is learnt to have drawn up an elaborate plan to squeeze political mileage out of the inauguration of the Ram Temple.

The party is planning to use Ram Bhakts as emissaries to ensure that a majority of the Hindu voters vote for its candidates in the Lok Sabha polls. Sources in the party say that the BJP was reportedly sponsoring subsidised visits for Ram Bhakts to the Ram Temple to please them and to use their services during the ensuing Lok Sabha polls.

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In fact, the party has plans to make arrangements for over 40,000 pilgrims to travel to Ram Temple from all the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies. The Railways is running Aastha Special trains from Telangana for people interested in visiting the Ram Temple and the BJP is reportedly making arrangements for Ram Bhakts visit in these trains. Already the party has reportedly sent about 1,400 Ram Bhakts from the Zaheerabad Lok Sabha constituency.

The organisers of the trips are deploying one BJP leader for each compartment in the special trains to take care of the needs of the pilgrims. The BJP is mainly targeting people from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the Ayodhya trip as it does not have much support in these communities.

Apart from ferrying Ram Bhakts to Ayodhya, the party functionaries are visiting villages to distribute cards with photographs of the Ram Temple and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is learnt that Karimnagar BJP MP Bandi Sanjay has asked his followers to distribute the cards to over four lakh Hindu families in his constituency and seek their support in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls.

To further consolidate its position and increase its voter base, the BJP is also banking heavily on flagship welfare schemes of the Central government as part of its plans to expand its base in Telangana. The party leadership has asked its workers to contact beneficiaries of the central government’s welfare schemes and seek their support in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls.

The party leadership has asked State unit leaders to ensure victory in at least 10 seats in Telangana. The BJP won four MP seats in the last elections and with the party managing to win 8 seats in the recently concluded Assembly elections and receiving 14 percent of votes, it is hoping to win at least 10 Lok Sabha seats by taking the voting percentage to 30 this time.