Hyderabad: Telangana BJP — though it has been trying hard to maintain an ‘all is well’ narrative — leaders and cadres taking part in various events as part of its Maha Jan Sampark Abhiyan is being viewed as an exercise in keeping up appearances and maintaining a façade of well-being amid a general sense of dispirited drudging.
The state of affairs in the party in Telangana state, barring a sudden happy surprise or a serendipitous event, is such that members are going through the motions, with a still absent sense of cohesion among several senior and top party leaders. Things, according to party sources, are at a juncture where leaders are increasingly looking to their national leadership to get them out of the rut they find themselves in presently.
Although some senior party leaders claim that individual leaders do not matter in the BJP and that it is the ground-level workers, the ‘karyakartas’, who make the difference, the fact remains that the state BJP is placing a high premium on the party’s ‘Big Three’ — Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, and party president J.P. Nadda — to guide them out of the woods.
“When the top leaders come, their presence will give a huge boost to the party and add enthusiasm to all our work,” a senior leader said. “And we are not worried who will join our party or not. That is not something that will determine who and what we are.”
Incidentally, the last-minute cancellation of Shah’s public meeting in Khammam on June 15 due to cyclone Biparjoy caused unhappiness among the party cadres. This has also dimmed the excitement over Nadda’s scheduled meeting in Nagarkurnool on June 25, where he is to address a turnout of 1 lakh people, party sources said.
Sources also admitted that there is no clarity on when or whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi would address gatherings in the state.
Another senior BJP leader, admitting that a general sense of lethargy has crept into the party, said many of them were pinning their hopes on Modi, Shah and Nadda to infuse much-needed vigour into the party’s activities in the state.
“Though there are national general secretaries incharge of the state, they have not fully been successful in enthusing the party workers who see them as outsiders with little understanding of how politics in Telangana work,” the leader said.
