BJP rejigs state units; Telangana course correction after Congress surge
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, July 4: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday overhauled its units in four states. Teangana unit chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar was ousted as the state unit chief and replaced by Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy. The move has come in the backdrop of quick change of narrative in Telangana where the saffron outfit was pushed to the wall amid the Congress charge of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi being its B-team.
The BJP is likely to change state unit chiefs in a few more states to bring experienced hands in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections. The overhaul in the state units had been on the card for a while amid the ground assessment of the saffron outfit losing momentum.
The BJP is also likely to bring in new face in Karnataka and Union Minister of state Shobha Karandlaje is likely to be sent to head the state unit. The BJP top brass is yet to give its nod to the leader of the legislative party in Karnataka, which is likely to come soon.
The BJP also appointed the party national general secretary D. Purundeshwari Devi as the chief of Andhra Pradesh. The BJP also gave the charge of Punjab to former Congress MP Sunil Jakhar. The BJP has also appointed Babu Lal Marandi as the president of the Jharkhand unit.
While the BP had been preparing for the Telangana Assembly election in the leadership of Bandi Sanjay Kumar, the saffron outfit was forced to do a course correction as the Congress strongly made gains in the states, drafting scores of leaders from the ruling BRS. The Congress is seeking to extend its gains in Karnataka to Telangana.
With Reddy heading to the state as the chief of the Telangana unit, he is likely to resign from the council of ministers in line with the principle of the party of only one post holding a functionary.
By giving the charge of state unit to Marandi, the BJP is backing tribal leadership in Jharkhand. Marandi had staged a comeback in the saffron outfit after the 2019 Assembly election in the state. With a tribal face in the lead, the BJP will seek to counter Chief Minister Hemant Soren in the Lok Sabha election.
With Jakhar in the lead in Punjab, the BJP will be aiming to shore up its strength in the state by engineering defections from the Congress after the saffron outfit maintained a lead in two Assembly constituencies in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll.
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