Buoyed with making significant inroads in north Telangana while doubling its vote share in the just-concluded Assembly polls, BJP has set its sights on the Lok Sabha polls slated for next year.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was in Hyderabad on Thursday, had set a target to state leadership to bag more than 10 Lok Sabha seats of the total 17 in Telangana besides securing 35 per cent overall vote share. It is Amit Shah’s first visit to Telangana after the Assembly polls.
Currently, BJP has four, Congress three and BRS has nine MPs from Telangana. BJP has garnered around 19.5 per cent votes in the 2019 general elections in Telangana.
Amit Shah was in Telangana to do the dissection of the Assembly poll results and give a direction to the state leaders on the upcoming polls to the Lok Sabha. After his arrival in Hyderabad, Amit Shah had closeted with top leaders of the Telangana unit.
Later, he had also had a meeting with the recently elected MLAs. Sources in BJP told DH that Amit Shah during his interaction with party state president G Kishan Reddy, national general secretary Bandi Sanjay and election committee chairman, Eatala Rajender had opined that the saffron party’s performance in the Assembly polls would have been better if the leaders had worked in better coordination shunning their differences. He asked them to work in tandem for Lok Sabha polls.
Later, he held a meeting with leaders drawn from various mandals across Telangana and gave a clarion call to work hard for better results. He observed that the mandate given by Telangana voters was not in favour of Congress but a vote against family and autocratic rule of BRS. He expressed concern that Telangana had slipped into the fold of one family from another family.
He is also said to have hinted that the sitting MPs G Kishan Reddy, Bandi Sanjay, Dharmapuri Aravind and Soyam Bapu Rao will be re nominated to contest from the same segments in 2024 polls. Additionally, former MLAs M Raghunandan Rao and Eatala Rajender are also likely to be given a chance to contest in the upcoming polls.
After a near miraculous performance in the 2019 general elections where the party bagged four Lok Sabha seats, BJP had started focusing on Telangana. After putting in special efforts in the Assembly polls, BJP had retained its sitting seat Ghoshamahal and won seven new seats. The party also stood in second position in at least 18 segments. In a few more seats, BJP candidates stood a strong third by polling a good number of votes. BJP could this time secure its deposits in more than 40 seats. BJP in the 2018 Assembly polls lost deposits in 105 of the 119 segments in the state and won only one seat.
BJP's top guns Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior national-level leaders visited Telangana multiple times for campaigning. Even before the announcement of the poll schedule, Modi visited Telangana and addressed two public meetings.
After the schedule was released, he visited Telangana five days and addressed eight public meetings. As a parting shot just before the campaigning ended on November 27, he participated in a mega roadshow in Hyderabad. Amit Shah had visited Telangana eight times and addressed 17 public meetings and seven road shows.
The announcement of an OBC CM and Modi attending Madiga's meeting also helped the party improve its performance.