Hyderabad: The state BJP has hit the road ahead of all parties with its 12-day Vijaya Sankalpa Yatra on Monday, it appears lacking strong leadership at the local level for the Lok Sabha polls in the state.
The party has no powerful leader to contest many Lok Sabha seats including Peddapalli, Warangal, Mabubabad, Khammam, Nalgonda and Medak. The acknowledgement of TS unit president and Union minister G. Kishan Reddy recently that the party was hopeful of strong leaders joining the party indicated that there was a strategy to attract leaders from rival parties.
That approach, however, had badly boomeranged in the Assembly polls with the party failing to attract strong leaders. For a brief while, the BJP was seen the probable principal opposition to the BRS but lost ground rapidly.
The ‘joining committee’ of former MLA Etala Rajendar has became redundant. Those who joined, like Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy and G. Vivek Venkataswamy, quit in no time.
It is stated that assimilation into the ranks remains a problem for outsiders.
Asked about this, BJP Parliamentary Board member Dr K. Laxman, MP and party OBC Morcha president, told Deccan Chronicle that a number of leaders with a strong support base would be joining the party in the coming days. The party did not want to disclose their names.
Dr Laxman was confident that the work carried out by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre would help the party win a majority of Lok Sabha seats. The Vijay Sankalpa Yatra strategy reflects this, and the party hopes to benefit from the distribution of Ayodhya Lord Rama temple ‘akshatalu’ to lakhs of households as well as the special trains taking Ram Bhakts to Ayodhya. The BJP high command set the state unit a target 10 Lok Sabha seats from the state, based on its 13.88 per cent vote share in the recent Assembly polls against 7.1 per cent in 2018.
Even if it is five years ago, it must still be remembered that the BJP won one Assembly seat in 2018, and four Lok Sabha seats in the general elections the next year.
