New Delhi/ Hyderabad: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders are set to embark on a “scooter yatra” to reach out to people in every constituency in Telangana, where the party is trying to expand its footprint.
The party’s Telangana unit is aiming to cover all villages in the state by December this year as part of its preparations to take on the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) led by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) in the 2023 assembly election.
“We have formed a group of 10 state leaders who will adopt 10 constituencies each and will tour every single village in these seats under our Praja Gosa — BJP Bharosa (issues of the people — trust in BJP) programme. We will erect a BJP flagpole in every village. The first phase begins tomorrow and will continue till 14 August,” said BJP Rajya Sabha MP K. Laxman, who will be part of the tour in the second phase.
“Every month, these 10 groups will visit villages and hold a chaupal to interact with the villagers. To reach out to the maximum number of villages in a short span, we will tour on scooters. Our leaders are already carrying out padayatras, and this will be a scooter yatra,” he added.
According to a party functionary, as part of the “scooter yatra”, the leaders will also spend a night in each village. “Every leader will be accompanied by 100-150 workers and a chaupal will be convened. All schemes of the Modi government will be highlighted, and we will also highlight how the KCR government has failed on several fronts,” said the functionary.
Another party leader said: “Our aim is to cover seven-eight villages every day and the central leadership has set us the target of December. In case the state elections are advanced, we want to be fully prepared, and hence these programmes are being chalked out.”
The BJP leaders who will visit the villages include former MP G. Vivek Venkatswamy and MLA T. Raja Singh.
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Targeting Lok Sabha seats
In the 2019 general election, the BJP had won four of Telangana’s 17 Lok Sabha seats — Secunderabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad.
As part of its nationwide programme to focus on Lok Sabha seats where it lost last time, the BJP has assigned ‘pravas (journeying) ministers’ to look after 16 of 17 constituencies in Telangana. They include Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Pralhad Joshi, Purushottam Rupala and Mahendra Nath Pandey, among others.
The idea is to tour the constituencies where the BJP lost and have a dialogue with voters about the Modi government’s schemes and programmes, and how they are benefiting them directly or indirectly.
“Till the (next) parliamentary election, these (pravas) ministers will tour the Lok Sabha constituencies and collect feedback from each on matters such as the functioning of Shakti Kendras (a central scheme for rural women), whether polling booth committees have been formed, the status of panna pramukhs (BJP workers put in charge of a single page of the electoral roll), whether regular pravas is being undertaken by leaders, and whether central schemes are reaching the people, and if not, why,” said the party leader quoted earlier.
As part of the pravas, the ministers will hold a flag-hoisting ceremony with the aim of covering as many remote places as possible and to create a mahol (atmosphere) ahead of the state elections, according to party leaders.
The tours by the pravas ministers are expected to help in preparing for the Telangana Assembly elections, as they will submit a comprehensive report to BJP president J.P. Nadda and national general secretary B.L. Santhosh.
Making inroads
Perceived as a minor player in Telangana politics until recently, the BJP has made rapid strides in the state in the past few years.
In November 2020, the party took political circles by surprise when it defeated the ruling TRS in the Dubbaka assembly bypoll. Later, it won 48 of 150 wards in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections, setting off alarm bells in rival camps in the state.
Then in November last year, the BJP won the Huzurabad assembly bypoll in what was dubbed as a “grudge match”, given that its candidate was former TRS minister Eatala Rajender. The BJP candidate won the TRS fortress by a margin of over 23,000 votes.
Putting the focus sharply on Telangana, the BJP has now rolled out various programmes to make its presence felt in the state. Right from scheduling the party’s national executive meeting in capital Hyderabad on 2-3 July, central leaders, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, are frequently attending programmes in the state.
Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay tweeted Tuesday that a “high-power committee of the Union Home Ministry will visit Telangana to assess the damage caused by rains and floods” over the last week. Deploying the party hashtag #BJPCaresForTelangana, he added that the party leadership showed “deep concern” about the issue.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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