The trump card?

BJP EYES KAPUS, PICKS KANNA

Mudragada meet throws many equations

Vijayawada/Guntur: Ending months long suspense as to who would lead the BJP in Andhra Pradesh, party national leadership on Sunday appointed former minister Kanna Lakshminarayana as president of the party state unit.

The party also appointed MLC Somu Veerraju as convener for the Election Management Committee. As both leaders belong to the Kapu community, it has become obvious that the BJP is eyeing Kapus in coastal Andhra Pradesh who are numerically strong and who could make or mar the chances of any party from coming to power.

The incumbent state president K Haribabu had quit since recently as he had served the party in the capacity for more than two terms. Expressing gratitude to the party leadership, Lakshminarayana said: "I will do my best to strengthen the party from grassroots level." Lakshminarayana joined the BJP on October 27, 2014, after the Congress was defeated in Andhra Pradesh decisively in the general elections held earlier in the year.

The leadership persuaded Lakshminarayana and rewarded him with the position at a time when he was all set to join the YSRCP, after getting indications that someone else was being considered for the post of party president. BJP general secretary Arun Singh issued the order appointing the two leaders for posts.

The party before zeroing in on Lakshminarayana, had considered Veerraju, former ministers P Manikyala Rao and D Purandeshwari. Though Veerraju and Manikyala Rao also belong to the Kapu community, the party is understood to have decided against them as Veerraju being too aggressive and Manikyala Rao being too gentle, the traits that would not be of much use in politics.

As Kanna Lakshminarayana is a powerful Kapu leader who does not hesitate to wear his hatred for Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on his sleeve, he appears to have made the cut to the position. BJP senior leaders with RSS background are unhappy about the developments. One senior leader on condition of anonymity said that his party national leadership was taking decisions against the ideology of the party.

He wondered as to how former minister Kanna was selected for the president post though he is still known as Congress leader. In the past, decisions were never taken based on one’s caste,” he said. In another significant development, Kapu patriarch Mudragada Padmanabham called on Lakshminarayana even as the news broke out that he would be leading the party in the state henceforth.

Padmanabham later told media-persons that he had discussed BC status for the Kapus which had eluded them for decades and sought his help in taking this to the notice of the party central leadership.

The meeting between the two leaders is considered significant since Chandrababu Naidu is banking heavily on Kapu voters for his election this time as it was this community that had helped him get a majority number of seats in the Assembly.

But it was Pawan Klayan who helped the turn the tide of Kapu voters in his favour and now that Pawan Kalyan is behind the enemy lines, it remains to be seen what strategy he would script to turn the tables on his political adversary.