The regional parties have a kind of autonomy that the regional leaders of the national party cannot have. Everything they do needs the nod of the high command as in the Congress and as the national leadership in the BJP. Even in the Left parties, the local leaders have to follow the dictates of the Central party leadership.

But, Andhra Pradesh state BJP president Somu Veerraju seems to have forgotten this dictum. He seems to think that he is independent like the leaders of the regional parties. The other day, Somu Veeraju was asked a question about the privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP). Somu Veerraju said that he strongly opposes the privatisation and added that he would fight against the privatisation. He said the BJP would not allow the privatisation.

While it makes a good copy for the media, Veerraju perhaps forgot that his own party, the BJP, was in power at the Centre and that it was his supreme leader Narendra Modi who is hell-bent on privatising the public sector behemoths. In fact, Modi was merciless when some of his ministers could not speed up the process of privatisation and threw them out of his council of ministers. Given this, how can Somu Veerraju stop the privatisation of the VSP? Does it mean that he is ready to pick up a fight with all-powerful Modi and fight for the ‘rights’ of the Telugu people?

Will he even get an audience with the Prime Minister? With Modi on a privatisation, can Somu Veerraju stop the Juggernaut? How can the Telugus believe his words? Don’t they sound too hollow? Time Somu Veerraju realises the limits of a regional leader in a national party.