Hyderabad: Armed with the Ram Mandir construction plank, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Telangana is all set to ramp up its 2024 Lok Sabha poll campaign in Telangana with an even more aggressive Hindutva than last year’s Assembly election. After Karnataka, the party’s focus in South India is on Telangana given that this is the only state where it has potential to grow faster.
The Ram Mandir was consecrated by the central government on January 22 in Uttar Pradesh, signalling the win of Hindutva groups led by the BJP which demolished the Babri Masjid that stood in it place on December 6, 1992.
Apart from issues like that of renaming cities (Hyderabad to Bhagyanagar) to polarizing campaigns by leaders like Raja Goshamahal MLA Singh, the BJP is also likely to use propaganda movies like the ‘Razakar: Silent genocide of Hyderabad’ as well. The movie is being produced by BJP’s Gudrun Narayan Reddy, a native of Bhongir district in Telangana.
During the 2023 Assembly election, BJP leaders even used local singers to sing polarizing songs for their campaigns. The word ‘Razakar’ is also constantly used by BJP leaders to attack the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and also Muslims. The Razakars were a Muslim-led militia that wanted the Hyderabad state to be independent, and led by former AIMIM chief Qasim Razvi until Hyderabad’s merger with India on September 17, 1948.
BJP targeting 10 seats
While BJP Telangana chief Kishan Reddy is not overtly assertive in terms of Hindutva aggression like his predecessor Bandi Sanjay, the party is looking to increase its Lok Sabha seat count. In the 2019 general elections, the saffron party won four seats, the Congress three and the then ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) nine, while the AIMIM retained its one seat.
”This time we are looking at 10 seats, as the BRS is irrelevant. They have no role to play in anything and with the Ram Mandir consecration, it has definitely given a big boost to us across the country. Why would anyone waste their votes on Congress or BRS? And the Congress will also be in the opposition as they are not going to win,” asserted a BJP leader from Telangana, who did not want to be identified.
He added that once the party’s Vijay Sankalpa Yatra (as part of the poll campaign) begins from February 20, union ministers and other big names will come to Telangana for campaigning. In the 2023 Assembly polls which the Congress won, the BJP managed to win eight seats. However, the silver lining was that it managed to double its vote share from 7% in 2018 to 14% in 2023, a 100% increase.
”If things go our way we could even get 40% of the vote share. If you remember, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections we got a 20% vote share after getting only 7% vote share in the 2018 Assembly polls. So it is not impossible,” added the BJP leader.
A Congress leader from the state said that the grand old party is also expecting to win about 10 out of 17 seats in Telangana, given that it is in power. The BRS, according to party insiders, at best is likely to win about 5 to 7 Parliament seats if it manages to perform well. Led by ex-chief minister K Chandrashekar (KCR), the BRS was hoping to play a larger role in the Lok Sabha elections as KCR was well on course to expand his party nationally.
