Hyderabad: In another a blow to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), its sitting Zaheerabad Lok Sabha MP BB Patil resigned and is all set to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This is the second BRS MP to join the BJP over the last two days, with Nagarkurnool MP Pothuganti Ramulu jumping the same ship.
The switching of loyalties is expected as the Lok Sabha poll approaches. The BRS, having the lost last year’s Assembly election to the Congress, is currently at a disadvantage since it has been losing leaders and cadre to the grand old party ever since it lost. The BJP in Telangana meanwhile is hoping to do better than the four seats it during the last 2019 General Elections.
Patil had won the Zaheerabad Lok Sabha seat twice on the BRS’ ticket in 2014 and 2019. In the previous polls, he beat the Congress’s Madan Rao by just over 6200 votes. He may have jumped shit since the BRS may have been planning to replace him this time around. A BJP leader from Telangana said that while Patil has not been promised anything, he may get the party’s ticket.
“Ramulu said that the BJP has promised separate SC reservation for Madigas so he would have joined BJP for that. But we don’t know the hidden politics behind the Zaheerabad MP leaving. In the coming elections, it looks like the play is between the Congress and BJP. Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy also said that he wants to reduce the BRS’s performance to zero this time,” said Prof E Venkatesu, a faculty member from the University of Hyderabad’s political scientist.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BRS won nine out of 17 seats, while the Congress, BJP and AIMIM won three, four and one seat each. Another political analyst said that “There are some segments like Zaheerabad where BJP’s rise in Karnataka may have an effect there, so Patil may have defected for that. Otherwise, the Congress also has no vacancy in the state. More MPs are likely going to follow suit like this,” stated analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy.
