The Bharatiya Janata Party is keeping a close eye on any development taking place in Andhra Pradesh-Telangana and Bihar-Jharkhand theatres for obvious political reasons.
While the Janata Dal (United) is reportedly keen on wooing a very prominent BJP rebel Saryu Roy to its side and is planning to project him as its face in Jharkhand, on July 6 Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu landed in Hyderabad where he was accorded a rousing welcome. He met his Telangana counterpart Revanth Reddy and discussed pending issues related to the bifurcation of the state in 2014.
Many of these disputes could not be sorted out because of the somewhat hostile relationship between Naidu and the then Telangana chief minister and Bharatiya Rashtriya Samiti leader Chandrasekhar Rao. Even when Jagan Mohan Reddy became the CM of AP they could not be
solved.
There is nothing wrong in such a meeting, but the BJP cannot look the other way round when any of its alliance partners meet the Congress chief minister. And that too Revanth Reddy, with whom Naidu had a cordial relationship. He was in TDP between 2008 and 2017 before crossing over to the Congress.
The bonhomie shown by the two Telugu satraps in the two-hour-long meeting is bound to cause some discomfort in the saffron camp.
Now that the Union Budget is to be presented on July 23 Naidu is doing everything to seek maximum money from the Centre for new capital, Amravati. Whether he gets Rs one lakh crore or Rs 50,000 crore cannot be said now, but there is no denying the fact that the demand has more to do with the competitive politics in the National Democratic Alliance.
Both Andhra Pradesh and Bihar have softened their stand on Special Category Status, but are insisting on Special Package. Even during the June 29 national executive in Delhi Janata Dal (United) demanded Special Category Status or Special Package for Bihar.
The Centre may announce a Special Package for both states, as doing this only for one may create problems.
Bihar-Jharkhand challenge
But more than Special Package demand, it is the growing friendship between Saryu Roy and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, which is being watched closely by the leaders of the saffron brigade. Roy, despite being an RSS veteran, is the same person who as an Independent candidate defeated the then Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das in his constituency, East Jamshedpur. The BJP was voted out of power in 2019.
As the Jharkhand election is due in December the BJP is bound to be worried. In the recently held Lok Sabha election the saffron party lost all the five Scheduled Tribes Reserved seats. Its tally came down from 12 to nine in the state having 14 Lok Sabha seats. With Hemant Soren now back as the chief minister the resurgent JMM, Congress, and Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance can pose a big challenge to the BJP.
Notwithstanding ancestral roots in neighbouring Chhattisgarh, Das was the choice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was installed as the first non-tribal chief minister in the state carved out in the name of Adivasis. At present, Das, who like Modi is a Teli, is the governor of Odisha.
JD (U)’s game plan
Rumours of Saryu Roy’s entry into Janata Dal (United) started doing the rounds after he met Nitish on June 26. Three days later the party in its national executive in New Delhi decided to contest the Jharkhand election in alliance with BJP and possibly the All Jharkhand Students’ Union, Roy will be an asset to Janata Dal (United). This will be the first time after the snapping of relationship with the BJP in
2013 that the JD (U) would be contesting the Jharkhand election in alliance with the saffron party. It is another thing that in Bihar JD (U) made two homecomings to the NDA fold—first on July 26, 2017, and again on January 28 this year.
In the recently held Lok Sabha poll JD (U) wanted to field Saryu Roy from Dhanbad (Jharkhand) but the BJP did not lend its ears to this demand. Now in the changed political scenario, the saffron party is on the weak wicket and may yield some grounds.
In the 2019 Assembly election in Jharkhand the Janata Dal (United), though a National Democratic Alliance constituent in Bihar, supported Roy, who contested as an Independent, against Raghubar Das. JD (U) insiders are of the view that Roy may once again fight from East Jamshedpur–this time as a Janata Dal (United) candidate.
If Saryu Roy’s card succeeds then it would be difficult for the return of Raghubar Das to the state politics. The weak BJP in Jharkhand may keep him away and project the state party chief Babulal Marandi, the first chief minister of the state, as the CM face. As the party had lost all the five ST reserved seats in the recently held Lok Sabha election in Jharkhand it may use Marandi to counter the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha after the release of Hemant Soren. Both Marandi and Soren are Santhal, the largest tribal group in the Chotanagpur region.
The BJP will have a problem in dealing with 73-year-old Roy as he has a lot of supporters within the Sangh Parivar. He is an organizational man and cannot be ignored. His relationship with Marandi too was not very good.
Remember it, Roy was among the most powerful ministers in Das cabinet but was denied a ticket in 2019 because of his clout in the BJP and Janata Dal (United). So, he fought as an Independent against CM Das and defeated him in his constituency.
Roy factor
Roy was not only forthright in raising the issue of corruption against the Das government even former chief minister Madhu Koda had to resign and go to jail after Roy launched his campaign against him.
Roy was among those who led a legal battle against the fodder scam which compelled then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav to resign and was subsequently convicted.
Roy, originally a Rajput from Buxar in Bihar, has no strong social base of his own in Jharkhand, but his connection in RSS still matters.
So, be it Naidu’s one to one meeting with Reddy in Hyderabad, or JD (U)’s strategy to use Saryu Roy as a bargaining chip in the coming Assembly election in Jharkhand and then again in Bihar next year, the BJP cannot overlook these developments.
As Andhra Pradesh and Bihar chief ministers have in the last quarter century of NDA politics mastered the art of twisting the arms of the big brother BJP–maybe gently—the saffron brigade will have to realize that in the process both its hands would be engaged.
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