“A week is a long time in politics.” is a popular quote often used by many commentators to describe the sudden change in fortunes of leaders and political parties. The politics of Telangana present a perfect case study of this popular quote. Even though things haven’t changed literally in a week, it is indeed a wonderful case study as to how drastically the fortunes of all political parties have changed from the last time we analysed the political situation here.
After the debacle in 2018 (winning 1 out of the 119 MLA seats), the BJP tremendously picked up just within 4 months to win 4 out of the 17 MP seats in Telangana in 2019. The BJP then appointed a newly elected MP (and a Sangh member for a long time) Bandi Sanjay Kumar as the President of the state unit. The BJP won 2 important MLA bypolls in 2020 and 2021; lost a tightly contested bypoll in 2022; increased their strength from 4 to 49 in GHMC in 2020; and won a tightly contested Teachers Constituency MLC election in 2023. The Party President had embarked on a phase-wise padayatra. The success of this padayatra found a special mention by the Prime Minister himself, who asked other state units to emulate this. The MIM and BRS were even forced to celebrate the Telangana Liberation Day because of an astute move by Amit Shah as Home Minister.
The rise of the BJP coincided very well with the massive decline of the Congress party. 12 out of the 18 MLAs that won in the 2018 elections jumped ship to BRS by mid-2019! Congress party was not registering their presence in any of the elections ever since (after winning 3 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections). The all-important Munugode by-poll happened while the BJ Yatra was in Telangana and yet Congress failed to get their deposit back in a seat that it held just a few months back!
At a time like this, when BJP was on the rise and the Congress was on the decline, rumours began to float that the BJP state unit would be getting a new President in place of the then incumbent, Bandi Sanjay Kumar. The BJP got inflicted with the problem that the Congress continuously has – infighting!
Senior leaders of other parties who joined the BJP were unhappy with Bandi Sanjay. They made a beeline to Delhi and complained to Amit Shah and J.P. Nadda. The subsequent phases of the padayatra weren’t happening now. Attempts of truce seem to be failing and it was getting very clear that all the advantage that BJP has gained is slowly beginning to wash away. The party’s central leadership finally gave in to the demands of these leaders. Bandi Sanjay Kumar was replaced by Kishan Reddy, who is also a cabinet minister in the central government. Rumours were afloat that Bandi Sanjay would be accommodated in the central cabinet as MoS but eventually, he was made a General Secretary of the National BJP (a powerful post nonetheless).
While the BJP was busy with this infighting, the Congress suddenly started to revive. The win in the Karnataka elections in May 2023 came as a big fillip to the fortunes of the party in Telangana, very unexpectedly! Around this time, a former MP and a former minister were expelled from the BRS party by KCR. They belonged to the Khammam district. BJP has been traditionally poor in this district. Everyone was hopeful that these two leaders would enter the BJP giving it a much-needed boost. However, the BJP failed to woo these two leaders and the Congress Party grabbed that opportunity. And with this joining, now an influx has begun into the Congress party (when just about 6 months ago, there was a line to join the BJP!). To keep up the tempo, the Congress party chose to announce 6 Guarantees for Telangana (on similar lines to what they did for Karnataka) – which pretty much means that they have released their manifesto.
Meanwhile, KCR, the CM and supremo of the BRS party, has announced candidates for 115 seats out of the 119 seats. He had made a similar early announcement in the 2018 elections too. In 2023, he is contesting from two different constituencies, which in itself is an indication that he is not very strong in his existing constituency. Contesting from two different constituencies is generally done for two reasons – Either to show that they are covering different regions in the state/country, or they are not confident about retaining the existing seat. In KCR’s case, both the constituencies he has chosen are very close to each other – which only indicates that he is not confident of winning the current one. As expected, there were dissidents in the party after the announcement of the candidates. So severe was some dissidence, that KCR had to induct an MLC into his cabinet in a hurriedly convened swearing-in ceremony, just 3 months before the election!
Elections are due in December 2023. We are nearing October 2023. BRS party has announced candidates for 115/119 seats. Congress party has announced its manifesto in the form of 6 Guarantees. The BJP is yet to do any of this. The BJP, which was on the rise at this time last year, has now stagnated because of the developments over the past 6 months. The 2023 elections looked like a fight between BRS and BJP, just about a year back. It is now a fight between BRS, Congress and BJP (MIM will win their 7 seats). In a 3-way contest, the only beneficiary will be KCR. We now need to wait and watch what will unfold in the next two months.
