BJP AP former president Kanna Lakshminarayana became the enemy number two of Jagan Reddy while of course Chandrababu is number one rival. Following this, Vijayasai Reddy has long been targeting Kanna and he also gave predictions several times that Kanna’s removal was just a matter of time. It is well known, Vijayasai has got close connections with BJP Delhi leaders. PM Modi also would wish him by name even in public gatherings. Political circles are surprised now whether Vijayasai was still calling shorts in BJP national leadership going by how his prediction came true with regard to Kanna.
Everybody knows how heavily the politics of Andhra Pradesh are dictated by caste considerations. But, the BJP national leadership chooses to ignore this yet again. The party brought Kapu leader and former Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana as BJP AP President to attract Kapu voters in 2019 elections. It is true that the Kapus form a considerable chunk of the electorate in the State. But, the selection of Kanna could not enhance the electoral fortunes of the BJP in any measure.
In 2019, the BJP got just 0.84 per cent vote share as against 49.95 per cent of YSRCP and 40 per cent of TDP, 7 per cent of Jana Sena Party and 1.17 per cent of Congress party. It was evident that the BJP got lesser per cent than the Congress even though the BJP was seen as a lesser enemy than Congress by Andhras on unjust bifurcation.
It is well known that a very large segment of Kapu voters were identifying themselves with Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena. It is just reflective of sheer caste arithmetic in AP. Reddys sail with YSRCP, Kammas with TDP and Kapus with Chiranjeevi formerly and Pawan Kalyan at present.
By all means, the BJP Kapu experiment failed in 2019. Still, the party chose Kapu leader Somu Veerraju to replace Kanna. Interestingly, Veerraju hails from the Godavari districts where the dominant Kapu voters voted mostly for Jana Sena and partly for YSRCP and TDP. Veerraju could not get any vote share in his own community strongholds of East and West Godavari districts.
