T-BJP awaits Modi touch

Hyderabad: Will the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Telangana on October 2 clear the charge that BJP and BRS are two sides of the same coin?

Though Telangana is poised for a triangular contest, BJP has turned into a third but weak wicket giving rise to speculations that it was part of the strategy of the saffron party to help BRS come back to power as both of them treat Congress as a common political enemy. Immediately after Modi’s visit, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda and a host of senior leaders would be converging on Hyderabad.

The sudden exit of Venkat Reddy a close aide of state BJP president G Kishan Reddy who had joined BRS on Friday, had once again brought internal rumblings in the party to the fore. Party leaders say that the biggest setback for state BJP came after Bandi Sanjay was shifted and the present leadership was more dependent on the “intellectuals” within the party who do not have much to do with ground level activity and were now the new strategists which were leading to greater trouble.

In the backdrop of this scenario, the visit of Modi to Mahbubnagar and that too on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti assumes importance.

The impression among the national leadership, party sources say, is that the state unit had not been able to meet the expectations of the party high command and so far no strong ground level activities had been taken up.

While the BJP lost its ground after the results of Karnataka elections, the Congress had emerged as the number two party. Even BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao had stated that for him Congress was his main rival not BJP. While leaders from BJP are looking towards Congress, the state BJP has failed to poach leaders from other parties.

The state leaders feel that Modi might give them a new direction and clear roadmap to ramp up the functioning of the party.