Hyderabad: Four of the BJP’s six Lok Sabha candidates in Andhra Pradesh joined the party over the last five years, one of them hours before the list announcement, sparking discontent within the state unit.
Moreover, the Wednesday announcement of the BJP’s 10 candidates for the state assembly polls has added to the discontent, with four of them having been earlier associated with Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP). One of the candidates, Bojja Roshanna, joined the BJP earlier this week. The remaining three joined the party over the last five years.
Former chief minister Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy, former Lok Sabha MP from Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP Kothapalli Geetha, outgoing Rajya Sabha MP C.M. Ramesh (elected from the TDP in 2018) and Gudur MLA from YSRCP Varaprasad Rao will be in the fray from Rajampet, Araku, Anakapalli and Tirupati Lok Sabha segments respectively.
Except Bhupatiraju Srinivasa Varma, the Andhra Pradesh BJP secretary with an RSS background chosen for Narasapuram, all other candidates are imports into the BJP.
State BJP chief Daggubati Purandeswari, a former UPA minister and daughter of N.T. Rama Rao, TDP founder and former CM of united Andhra Pradesh, is contesting this time from Rajahmundry.
The nominations have left several expectant seniors, especially those with RSS association, sulking in Andhra Pradesh where the party is vacillating between contesting alone and in alliance from election to election.
The BJP, which fought solo in the 2019 polls, has renewed its 2014 alliance with Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party (JSP) for this election.
As part of the alliance deal, the BJP will be in the fray in six of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh.
The AP Lok Sabha list — released Sunday night after protracted deliberations and YSRCP MLA Varaprasad Rao’s eleventh-hour defection — has also bared fissures within the state BJP over the alliance with TDP.
Sensing their poor prospects, three days prior to the candidate list’s release, several state BJP leaders, apprehensive about the TDP alliance from the start, shot off a public letter to party chief J.P. Nadda, complaining that “weak seats” were being allotted to the party. They also cautioned against selecting “TDP favoured candidates”. The letter was also marked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national general secretary (organisation) B. L. Santhosh among others.
“We request you to allot maximum seats to our party men who are serving from long, committed to our ideology. This will help strengthen our organisation in future,” they further said.
The letter, signed by BJP national executive member K Santha Reddy, state vice-presidents Vishnu Vardhan Reddy and Suryanarayana Raju, state general secretary S. Dayakar, state secretary Surendra Mohan among others, stated their submission is “the widespread view and unexpressed voice of lakhs of AP BJP karyakartas of grassroots level”.
“Nevertheless, we were given a raw hand, denied an opportunity to contest and prove ourselves. Many of us have a long association with the RSS, later ABVP, BJYM etc. We, committed to ideology and party growth, were left out very unkindly,” one of the signatories told ThePrint.
Allocated three Lok Sabha seats before the BJP’s entry into alliance, the JSP “sacrificed” one segment for the BJP and is now contesting in Kakinada and Machilipatnam seats.
Bigger partner in the tripartite alliance TDP is contesting in the remaining 17 constituencies. Rival YSRCP is going alone in all the 25 segments.
Andhra Pradesh will vote in a single phase on 13 May for both Lok Sabha and assembly polls.
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BJP candidates’ TDP, Congress, YSRCP connect
Party leaders point to Bhupatiraju’s candidature as the saving grace.
Against the general expectation that sitting MP K Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, a YSRCP rebel, would be fielded in Narasapuram, the BJP chose the home-grown Bhupatiraju, a Kshatriya, to contest from the Godavari belt seat.
Kiran Reddy, the last CM of united AP who rebelled against the Congress leadership over the state bifurcation decision, joined BJP in April last year. His younger brother Kishore Kumar Reddy is the TDP candidate from Pileru assembly constituency, part of Rajampet.
C.M. Ramesh, an industrialist-turned-politician, is widely perceived as Naidu’s man. Elected to the Rajya Sabha in March 2018 from TDP, Ramesh defected to the BJP in June 2019, following the TDP rout in the state and BJP retaining power at the Centre. Ramesh, sources said, lobbied hard in New Delhi for TDP’s patch-up with BJP on Naidu’s behalf.
Kothapalli Geetha, a former YSRCP Lok Sabha MP from Araku, will contest again from the Scheduled Tribe (ST) reserved seat. After falling out with Jagan, Geetha joined the BJP in 2019. Her ST status was in question.
Geetha was convicted in 2022 in a bank fraud case, and Ramesh is facing a 2023 forgery case.
Gudur MLA Varaprasad Rao, a former IAS of the Tamil Nadu cadre and former Lok Sabha MP, joined the BJP Sunday after Jaganmohan Reddy denied him a ticket this time.
Purandeswari, made the state BJP chief in July last year, too joined the BJP in 2014, exiting the Congress in protest of state bifurcation, carving out Telangana.
A BJP leader ThePrint spoke to said Somu Veerraju, former state BJP chief, was hopeful he’d get to contest from Rajahmundry, while Vishnu Vardhan Reddy, state party vice-president, was eyeing Hindupur, Y Satya Kumar, national secretary and UP BJP co-incharge, had his sights set on Anantapur and GVL Narasimha Rao was vying for the Visakhapatnam ticket.
“I have nurtured the party in one constituency for the last three years, expecting to contest from there. Unfortunately, the seat was given to TDP,” one of these hopefuls told ThePrint.
Political observers say the state BJP has been disfigured by internal discord, split in groups favouring, opposing the TDP alliance and now the disgruntled leaders.
“Somu group was opposed to the alliance, Purandeswari in favour. And with not many leaders of winning stature to avail, the BJP leadership has apparently opted for turncoats. These factors, in addition to TDP cadre also not very enthused about BJP patch-up, will show effect in the poll results,” said Chalasani Srinivas, founder president of the Andhra Intellectual Forum.
‘No outsiders contributed in party growth’
The BJP’s discontented Lok Sabha aspirants are questioning the contribution of “outsiders” who were handed tickets.
“Kiran Reddy joined the party last year and is unseen except during high-profile visits like those of the PM and home minister. Geetha joined in 2019 but was hardly involved in party activities. BJP does co-opt politicians from outside in other states too. But such leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia, Himanta Biswa Sarma, are engrossed in BJP expansion. This is not the case in AP,” the leader quoted earlier said.
“And some of these outsiders are widely known to have retained an underlying TDP affiliation. They have no interest in BJP’s growth in AP and have operated with the sole intention of bringing the BJP and TDP together again,” the leader, strongly opposed to TDP alliance, added.
BJP’s assembly contenders — 4 were with TDP before
The BJP Wednesday night released the names and constituencies of its 10 assembly election candidates, of which at least four were earlier with the TDP.
One of the nominees, Bojja Roshanna (Badvel), the TDP in-charge for the same constituency, joined the BJP earlier this week.
Businessman Y.S. Chowdary, a former TDP Rajya Sabha MP who also served as a minister of state in the first Narendra Modi government, joined the BJP in 2019 along with Ramesh. Better known as ‘Sujana’ Chowdary, he is the BJP candidate from Vijayawada West.
Adinarayana Reddy (Jammalamadugu) was made a minister in Chandrababu Naidu’s previous government in 2017, after the YSRCP MLA defected to the TDP. He joined the BJP in 2019. Adinarayana was earlier elected a Congress MLA in 2004 and 2009.
Eswara Rao (Etcherla), was also a former TDP leader, who joined the BJP during the 2019 polls.
Araku Valley nominee Pangi Raja Rao was reportedly the BSP candidate in 2009.
While Y. Satya Kumar, who had hopes for the Anantapur Lok Sabha, was given the Dharmavaram assembly ticket,several state BJP leaders were left dejected after the Lok Sabha and assembly candidate lists were released.
I.Y.R. Krishna Rao, former state chief secretary, associated with the party after IAS retirement, expressed displeasure over the seats allocated as part of the alliance.
“Whatever appeal BJP has is in urban areas. But except Visakhapatnam North, Vijayawada West and Adoni, where the party gained some hold, the other seven are rural areas. Incomprehensible, on what basis were these seats allocated to BJP? Has the TDP decided who will be BJP candidates on these seats and then allocated them to BJP as part of the alliance deal is the doubt many in BJP have now,” Rao posted on X Thursday. He expressed the same views to ThePrint.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)