HYDERABAD: Moving swiftly after naming a new president for Telangana BJP two days ago, the party on Friday appointed national leaders to help steer the party towards victory in the Assembly elections.
In a development that is not being viewed as a coincidence, the BJP announced the appointment of Prakash Javadekar, a former Union Minister and party member in the Rajya Sabha, as Telangana’s election affairs in-charge, and party national general secretary Sunil Bansal to assist Javadekar.
He will arrive in the city on Saturday, attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting in Warangal and stay in the state for three days and meet party leaders.
Javadekar was also the election in-charge in Telangana during the 2014 elections. Ironically, at that time, it was Kishan Reddy who was heading the state unit, making it the second time in nine years that the two senior BJP leaders will be working together during elections.
It was under Javadekar’s leadership that the BJP overcame some stiff internal resistance and entered into an electoral alliance with the TD that paid handsome rewards for the party, which barely had much public presence at that point of time helping BJP win five MLA seats, and in the Parliament elections later Bandaru Dattatreya became MP from Secunderabad.
The party leaders hope that the Javadekar-Kishan Reddy combo, assisted by Sunil Bansal, who considered the brains behind winning a second term for Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh, will work again this year in Telangana.
Bansal, who has been handling the party affairs in Telangana for some time now and has been overseeing its public outreach activities and political affairs, is expected to provide the ground-level strategising that the party would need to emerge as an effective force.
Javadekar and Bansal’s appointments come just two days after Kishan Reddy’s appointment as the new president of Telangana BJP, and that of Huzurabad MLA Etela Rajendar as the party election campaign chief, that was followed by the appointment of former MLA Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy as the party’s national executive member.
It remains to be seen how effective the Kishan Reddy-Javadekar-Bansal combination will navigate the current rifts and continuing discontent among the party leaders over the recent developments, including the various new appointments in the state unit.
