Ever since it faced a humiliating defeat in the by-elections to Tirupati parliamentary seat early this month, the Bharatiya Janata Party has virtually gone into a silent mode in Andhra Pradesh.
While BJP candidate, retired IAS officer K Ratna Prabha, who lost her deposit in the Tirupati by-polls, has gone back to Bengaluru, nothing is being heard from all the other leaders including party state president Somu Veerraju, party in-charge of Andhra affairs Sunil Deodhar and general secretary Vishnu Vardhan Reddy.
In fact, there was no attempt by the party leadership to review the reasons for the miserable show of Ratna Prabha in the Tirupati by-elections.
No statement was issued by any of the party leaders in public, except for some routine statements on the television debates.
More interestingly, the Andhra unit of the BJP has also not held any meeting with their alliance partner, Jana Sena, to discuss the post-poll strategies and work out the future course of action to strengthen the alliance.
Apparently, the BJP leaders are reconciled to the fact the alliance is no match for the ruling YSR Congress party.
Forget about capturing power in the state in the next elections, the BJP-Jana Sena combine is unlikely to come anywhere nearer even to the Telugu Desam Party which is still the only alternative to the YSRC.
In the meantime, chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is making every effort to get closer to the NDA government at the Centre led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his own reasons and also in the best interest of the state.
Maybe, that is also a reason for the Andhra BJP pressing the mute button in making any statements against the Jagan government!
