Telangana Polls 2023: BJP Central leadership campaign proving ineffective

BJP functionaries working at the grassroots level are worried about the leadership's “over-reliance” on central schemes during the campaigning and not touching the local issues pertaining to constituencies or districts

Hyderabad: With just two days left for campaigning to end in Telangana, the BJP State leaders and functionaries are a worried lot with the high profile campaigning taken up by the party central leadership failing to get the desired results. The leadership’s decision to adopt central schemes as the mainstay of its campaign and ignoring local issues has distanced the voters from it, party sources say.

BJP functionaries working at the grassroots level are worried about the leadership’s “over-reliance” on central schemes during the campaigning and not touching the local issues pertaining to constituencies or districts. Most of the BJP leaders campaigning in the State, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union Home Minister Amit Shah are mostly confined to issues such as making a Backward Classes leader the Chief Minister, misrule of BRS government, abolishing four percent reservation being provided to Muslims, celebration of Hyderabad Liberation Day, ending Majlis rule in the Old City of Hyderabad and various schemes and programmes launched by the BJP-led NDA government at the centre.

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Sources said the issues raised by BJP leadership were not attracting voters, as other parties were offering several schemes and freebies to them. Several senior party functionaries are worried as BJP candidates are facing difficulty in making people understand the benefits of the party’s much-hyped “Double Engine” government.

Even the setting up of National Turmeric Board and Central Tribal University is not helping the saffron party in getting any support. In fact, the poor presence of BJP among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes communities has been a cause of worry for the party leadership. The two communities have 31 reserved seats in the State.

The BJP leadership, which was expecting the BC communities to extend support to it after it announced that a BC leader would be made Chief Minister in the event of the party coming to power in Telangana, appears to have fallen flat with the community deciding to back the ruling BRS in this election.

Though all the top BJP leaders, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Assam Chief Minister Hemanta Biswa Sarma campaigned in the State, the lack of knowledge about the local issues and more stress on central schemes and praising the Modi government alienated the party, local BJP leaders feel.