With less than three months remaining for the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, serious rumblings are surfacing in the Bharatiya Janata Party Telangana unit, creating a lot of unrest in the party leaders and cadre.
The epicentre of this storm in the party is former minister and BJP election management committee chairman Eatala Rajender, who played an instrumental role in the shunting out of former state BJP president Bandi Sanjay.
Apparently, Eatala thought he would gain an upper hand in the party after Sanjay was replaced by Union minister G Kishan Reddy. But on the contrary, nobody is bothered to care about Eatala. Though he is the election management committee chairman, nobody is listening to him.
The latest allegation against Eatala is that he is planting stories on social media against several seniors, including Kishan Reddy and national executive committee member Vijayashanti.
On Thursday, Vijayashanti issued a statement, indirectly attacking Eatala for the campaign on social media that she was gradually distancing from the party.
“I don’t have an action plan to damage the party in the name of media chit chats like some leaders,” she said, referring to Eatala.
She said she had brought to the notice of the BJP national leadership whatever she had observed in the party.
“But some people tried to create an impression that I expressed my unhappiness over the party leadership,” she said.
According to reports, even Kishan Reddy expressed dissatisfaction over Eatala’s style of functioning. Sources close to him have alleged that Eatala has the habit of carrying tales to the high command against the party leaders in the state.
During the recent visit to Hyderabad on September 17, Union Home Minister Amit Shah reportedly expressed displeasure over the way things were moving in Telangana BJP, especially about lack of coordination among senior leaders.
He advised Kishan Reddy and Eatala to set aside differences and work together for the victory of the party in the forthcoming polls to the state assembly.
BJP state election in-charge Prakash Javadekar too was unhappy with the behaviour of Kishan Reddy and Eatala and asked them to sort out differences and start working to strengthen the party at the grassroots level.
He reportedly told them that the party had already wasted a lot of time to settle the internal bickering and if the poll campaign was not taken up right now, it would be very difficult for the party to match the ruling BRS, which had already announced the candidates and started campaigning .
Several State BJP leaders and functionaries feel that replacing Bandi Sanjay with Kishan Reddy had not helped the party in any way and that the rift between leaders was continuing, creating a lot of unrest among the cadre.
