BJP drafts Eatala to influence Left sympathisers

Hyderabad: State BJP is likely to adopt 'Huzurabad strategy' to win the byelections in the Munugodu Assembly constituency.

The party feels that there are similarities between the voters of Huzurabad and Munugodu. This is one constituency which has strong influence of the Left ideology though many have shifted loyalties to other parties due to various reasons. Most of the families here are associated with the Telangana armed struggle during the Nizam rule.

Party sources said that the BJP high command had studied the similarities between the voters of Huzurabad and Munugodu over decades. It is of the opinion that the majority of the voters in the two assembly segments are the strong supporters or sympathisers of the left party ideology and would tilt towards the leaders who have leftist ideology during elections.

In view of this, the party has asked Eatala Rajender, who is popular among the people with left orientation, to win over the left party sympathisers and see that they support the candidature of Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy.

Winning over this major section of voters becomes necessary since the left parties have announced their support to TRS party. It may be recalled that in Huzurabad byelections too the left parties had opposed Rajender but the voters stood by him resulting in his victory by 25,000 votes. The saffron party now wants a repeat performance of the same. In the last elections, these very voters had supported Rajgopal Reddy who contested on the Congress ticket. Hence, the BJP feels that it would not be very difficult to convince the voters to elect him again.

It is estimated that there are about 40,000 left sympathisers out of a total voters of 2.18 lakh voters in the constituency. Hence the BJP leaders propose to meet all the left sympathisers and convince them to vote for Rajagopal Reddy.

The BJP wants to complete this exercise before the Election Commission issues the poll notification.

Meanwhile, the BJP leaders were asked to go soft on the Hindutva ideology in this constituency lest they may not get the support of left sympathisers and the left parties which are supporting TRS may take "undue advantage," the party leaders add.