Hyderabad: It has done all it could during Lok Sabha election campaign that concluded on Saturday evening, and the BRS party that once held sway over Telangana, and is now in a do-or-die battle of relevance and survival in these Lok Sabha elections, is hoping that it can pull of some of its magic from its past and not just win one or two seats, but a dozen or more of the 17 up for grabs in the May 13 polling in the state.
The campaign was led from the front by party president and former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, who, during a 17-day long bus tour of the constituencies, addressed several whistle-stop roadside meetings, and made it a point to speak to individuals, including farmers, during stops along the way.
Shouldering much of the responsibility along with him were party working president K.T. Rama Rao, and senior leader T. Harish Rao, who in addition to making quick detours to other constituencies, focused mostly on two – Karimnagar and Medak – where they were tasked with ensuring victory for the party candidates.
Facing Congress and the BJP, both expected to do well in these elections in the state, the BRS campaign focused on the failures of the Congress government in the state and of the BJP government at the Centre.
The BRS campaigned hard on issues related to farmers alleging how power cuts have made their lives tough, how failure on providing irrigation led to crops drying up and how the Congress government failed to disburse rythu bandhu funds to many farmers. The party also repeatedly tried to hold the Congress government, just about five months old on promises made to women, including financial aid of `2,500 every month, and how a policy paralysis took hold with the state government focusing on making baseless allegations through white papers on the BRS administration.
On the BJP front, the target was Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the BRS leaders declaring that both Modi, and his party were interested in getting votes by sowing divisions among people. The BJP government at the Centre did nothing for Telangana in the last 10 years, and how the 150-odd promises and slogans of Modi were failures, be it ‘Sabka saath sabka vikaas’, ‘achche din’, ‘Make in India’, ‘Digital India’, and how instead of doubling farmers’ income as promised, Modi supervised the deaths of more than 700 farmers during a long protest in Delhi.
