Will BJP get more MLAs in Telangana than the MIM !?

Telangana activists are seething with anger over Pawan Kalyan’s remarks on KCR and TRS yesterday and BJP may end up paying badly this election for the choices it made in alliance and campaigns. After stitching an alliance with anti-Telangana TDP which was seen as a political suicide, BJP in Telangana seems to have completely lost the plot. The alliance limited BJP’s contest to 40 odd seats in Telangana. The conflict and confusion between TDP and BJP delayed the alliance from percolating to grassroots levels and cast doubts over whether the votes would transfer from one party’s followers to another’s.

Meanwhile, Kishan Reddy admitted into Telangana BJP actors like Suresh and Jeevitha. Suresh, whose anti-Telangana vitriol is viral on social media networks, also accompanied Kishan Reddy in campaigning in Telangana! This shocked the activists and was hard to digest. Modi visited Telangana and talked about ‘telugu pride’ here which was very dumb of him and the Telangana unit. He also said Telangana’s birth resulted in mother’s (Telugu pride) death implying birth of Telangana State is a tragedy! Modi didn’t even bother to congratulate Telangana people when the decade old struggle fructified and Statehood bill is passed. These things didn’t go down with Telangana activists. Adding to that is BJP’s attitude on controversial aspects in AP Reorganization Bill on Govt. employees, Polavaram and Special category status to Andhra. BJP is openly favoring Andhra and didn’t bother to listen to Telangana’s concerns during the passage of the bill and after. Instead, it mentioned in it’s manifesto that ‘full justice’ will be done to Andhra while it promised nothing to Telangana. KCR questioned Modi on these things and the response came from Telangana BJP’s another poster boy Pawan Kalyan.

Kishan Reddy and Bandaru Dattatreya then competed with each other to invite actor Pawan Kalyan to campaign for them in Telangana. Pawan Kalyan was already unpopular with Telangana activists for his comments on Telangana movement and leadership during the launch of his party Janasena. Pawan Kalyan carried the same attitude and abused and insulted TRS and KCR yesterday for questioning Modi on his insensitivities towards Telangana. With this, BJP now seemed to have succeeded in aborting it’s prospects in these elections. Voters in Telangana are bound to punish BJP for it’s recklessness. When the statehood was mooted, many expected BJP’s rise in Telangana along with TRS so much that even MIM publicly expressed concern about this and cited this as a reason to oppose Statehood. But BJP grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory, thanks to it’s backroom deals with Chandrababu Naidu. Modi seemed to have Telangana BJP a sacrificial goat for his alliance with TDP. How wise this may prove will be known on how many LS seats TDP may get in Seemandhra.

Right now, in Telangana BJP has chance only in couple of Lok Sabha seats. In assembly though, it would end up in single digits and the big question is whether it would get more seats than the MIM! MIM may win 5-6 seats and it would be a surprise if BJP surpasses that figure thanks to the inefficiency and insensitivity they have shown towards Telangana’s concerns.