After conquering Telangana Rashtra Samithi strongholds like Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad in the last Lok Sabha elections and Dubbak in Medak district recently, the Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing areas which were hitherto dominated by the Communist parties.
The immediate target before the BJP is to win Nagarjunasagar, which was a bastion of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and also the Congress party to some extent till recently.
Though Nagarjunasagar assembly seat was won by TRS candidate Nomula Narasimhaiah in December 2018 elections, it was basically because of Narasimhaiah’s Leftist background and strong cadre support.
Now with the seat falling vacant due to the sudden death of Narasimhaiah, the BJP is trying to conquer the seat despite having not much cadre base there. It is primarily banking on luring the Congress leaders and cadres there and also disgruntled elements from the TRS.
Similarly, the BJP is also eyeing Khammam Municipal Corporation, which has also been a Communist bastion.
Though the TRS, too, had been in a weak position in Khammam till recently, it managed to capture the district by engineering large scale defections from the Telugu Desam Party and the Congress.
The BJP, too, is planning to adopt the same formula to capture the Khammam municipal elections, likely to be held in March, along with Warangal municipal corporation, which also had strong presence of Leftists in the past.
In the last Khammam municipal elections, the BJP did not win even a single seat. In fact, it lost deposits in 10 out of 11 seats it had contested. But this time, the BJP has been going aggressively in the areas where Muslims are predominant, so that it could polarise Hindu votes.
The BJP is also growing strongly in the tribal areas which were once dominated by the Leftists. Already, BJP state president Bandi Sanjay has toured several areas of Khammam municipality and started attracting the Hindu voters.
“Even if the BJP can’t win Khammam municipality, it will prepare the ground for emerging strong in the 2023 assembly elections,” a BJP leader said.
