Amit Shah coming to feel pulse in Telangana

DAKSHINA Bharata JAITRA YATRA

Hyderabad: The BJP, which feels that the political situation in Telangana is now favorable for the party, has been evolving strategies to penetrate into rural areas of the state.

Making Telangana its next target after Karnataka and Odisha, the Saffron party is all set to launch the first phase of its campaign from Karwan in the old city on May 22. Later, he would visit Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar and Karimnagar districts to build party base from the grassroots.

According to BJP state president K Laxman, the ground work was started about three months back. The party had successfully completed the process of constituting booth-level committees in the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency and Nalgonda. In Mahbubnagar and Karimnagar districts more than 60 per cent of the booth committees have been constituted.

The BJP high command had already got about two surveys done -- one by the state unit and the other by an independent organization. It had also taken feedback from the district units and has assessed the ground situation.

It has identified district-wise local problems, promises made by the state government and the status of their implementation. In addition, the survey reports also have data on the caste composition, cadre network of other political parties like the Congress and Telangana unit of the TDP.

Based on these reports, BJP national president Amit Shah is said to have worked out a tentative roadmap after discussing with the state leaders at the recently-held national convention of the BJP.

Accordingly, it has been decided that Shah would take up door to door visit in the Munugode Assembly constituency which was won by the TRS. He will visit Dalit colonies there and will also have lunch with them.

Shah this time proposes to have small group meetings with the people rather than addressing huge public meetings to explain what the Centre has done for Telangana. He will also take feedback on whether or not the Central schemes had percolated down to the targeted groups.

However, during this visit of Shah no significant leaders from other parties are likely to join the BJP. The party insiders said while the doors of the party are open and talks were on with some important leaders from the Congress and TRS, things are still at a very nascent stage and this issue is not the priority of Shah during this visit.