BJP leaders in both the Telugu states, who used to claim of strengthening their party so that to gain power by next polls in these two states are now seen realising that they are turning `irrelevant’ politically.
During his maiden visit to these two states as party chief in January, 2015, Amit Shah told both the state units that “you should be strengthened so that to be in power by 2019 polls”. But since then hardly he focused his attention in that direction.
A former MLA said for the central party Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s political future is prime consideration, for which they will not hesitate to `sacrifice’ interests of state units. In AP, it is everybody’s guess BJP taking a strong posture may not help the party to grow as an alternate, but certainly leads to weakening of ruling TDP.
A senior BJP leader said that after Assam polls, party high command realised that without support of potential regional parties it would be difficult for the prime minister to cement its power at New Delhi. Since then only, BJP leadership started sending positive signals to Chandrababu Naidu and K Chandrasekhar Rao.
In Telangana too BJP high-command is reportedly viewing TRS as a potential allay in post-2019 polls. That’s why, barring few leaders like state party chief Dr K Lakshman and legislature party leader G Kishan Reddy, no other leader is seen daring to expose TDP government’s failures. In the same way, all the leaders who were known as critics of Chandrababu Naidu were forced to `shut their mouths’.
Union Ministers like M Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitaraman and Bandaru Dattatreya are hardly seen making any `critical reference’ to state governments. These two chief ministers are adopting same strategy with regard to BJP. Both of them making efforts to cultivate cordial relations with prime minister and other leaders, but ignoring the presence of BJP leaders in their respective states. Such attitude making state level leaders politically `irrelevant’.
