Vishnu Kumar Raju Frontrunner for BJP Floor Leader

 Visakhapatnam: Visakhapatnam North MLA P. Vishnu Kumar Raju is likely to be reappointed as the BJP's floor leader with Y. Satya Kumar Yadav getting a ministerial berth in the N. Chandrababu Naidu Cabinet.

However, Vishnu Kumar said he was not officially informed by the party's high command about this. "I am going to Delhi to meet party leaders," he said.

In the 2014-2019 Assembly, when BJP had only four MLAs in the AP assembly, Vishnu Kumar had spoken for 33 hours in the House, which was by a long way the most any BJP leader had spoken in the House.

Vishnu Kumar was initially considered for a Cabinet post after the 2024 Assembly election. However, the BJP high command ultimately chose Y. Satya Kumar Yadav as the party's lone face in the cabinet (health minister).

On this, Vishnu Kumar said, “Satya has the capability, that's why the party placed him in the AP cabinet. Moreover, this decision might have been influenced by various factors, including political strategy and community representation considerations.”

The BJP made significant gains in AP in the 2024 elections.

The saffron party bagged two Lok Sabha and four MLA seats in 2014. The party’s vote share was less than Nota in the 2019 elections.

In 2024, the BJP contested in 10 Assembly and six Lok Sabha constituencies, winning eight Assembly and three Lok Sabha seats, compared to zero in 2019. The BJP lost two more Lok Sabha constituencies with slender margins.

The landslide victory of the National Democratic Alliance in AP could be one of the reasons behind the increase in the BJP's vote share.

In Assembly constituencies, the BJP's vote share was 4.13 per cent in 2014, which fell to 0.84 per cent in 2019. Now, the BJP’s vote share has increased to 2.83 per cent.