Telangana Assembly Poll: Modi toils to spur BJP in race for 2nd slot against Congress
PM Narendra Modi in Telangana rally
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, November 27: With curtains set to come down on the electioneering for the Telangana Assembly election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the roadshow of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the IT city Hyderabad on Monday. The Modi roadshow came amid pollsters betting on the prospects of a split verdict in the Telangana poll.
The pollsters are betting on the possibility of the three main contenders – Bharat Rashtra Samithi, the BJP, and the Congress – locked in an electoral battle of 30 per cent vote bases. The Telangana-based political observers are claiming that the BRS continues to retain the lead position in the state politics on the strength of the organizational reach and the mainstay welfare schemes such as Rythu Bandhu for the farmers and landless labourers.
Besides, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao-led BRS is counting on the legacy identity politics, having led the agitation for the creation of Telangana state. His son K. T. Rama Rao while being an IT savy minister is seen on the grounds having brought strength to the BRS even while the party faces an anti-incumbency factor for two-term power in Telangana.
While the former election advisor of the BRS I-Pac of Prashant Kishor had recommended dropping several sitting MLAs in the Assembly election, the party leaders sniffed the wind in advance and a large number of them shifted allegiance to the Congress. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ is also noted by local political observers to have given a tailwind to the party in the Assembly election. The Congress ranks also gained from several of the former legislators from the state joining the party ahead of the Assembly election. The rapid gains for the Congress somewhat took the wind off the BJP’s campaign which had been hoping that Telangana could be the launch pad for the party’s ‘Mission South’. The mood in the Congress camp is also seen to have been sanguine after the party won the Karnataka Assembly election.
The BJP on the other hand has sought to recover the grounds lately by banking on the other backward caste card, polarization, Mudiraj and Madiga outreach and the promise to take a relook at the constitution of the scheduled castes with further sub-categorisation, and corruption plank against the KCR-led BRS. The pollsters claim that the BJP is immesley gaining vote base among the Mudiraj, Madiga, Yadav, Munuru Kapu, and other backward castes.
The Congress on the other hand is seen regaining the supportbase among the upper castes, including Reddy. The pollsters are also claiming that the Muslim vote base in the non-AIMIM core areas could be splitting between the BRS and the Congress. The BJP hopes to make gains in the North and South Telanagna where the party for the past two years had been pushing for the campaign of installing the Shivaji statues.
With the pollsters claiming that even a minor swing in the vote share could bring additional Assembly seats in the kitty of the parties, the BJP’s poll blitzkrieg has been led by Modi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, and others.
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