‘Hiring manager’ Etala Rajender gives up; Bandi Sanjay punctures BJP’s popularity bubble

HYDERABAD: A fresh issue that surfaced within the Telangana unit is causing a flutter within the BJP.

One of the most important leaders tasked with the responsibility of being the “HR head” for “headhunting” Etala Rajender, MLA from Huzurabad, threw his hands into the air and informed the ‘top management’ of the BJP that he could no longer handle the job assigned to him. He reportedly expressed his utter displeasure over lack of support from the system. He had already stopped performing the task given to him long ago or rather it turned out to be a non-starter.

Rajender told no less a person than Amit Shah at a meeting convened by BJP National president J P Nadda that he’s no longer handling the “hiring manager’s” role. While Rajender has his own reasons, it appears conspicuously that the BJP is unable to woo new “recruits” from other parties. It’s not without any reasons that the ‘once-right hand man’ of Telangana Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) turned out be a dud at the task.

The growing support base of the BRS has come as a big surprise not only to the BJP, but even to Rajender himself. The former Finance Minister expected that all the disgruntled elements would coalesce to exit the BRS and join the BJP. However, this calculation misfired and nobody is even evincing interest to cross the floor, thanks to popularity scale of the BRS and the BJP in Telangana is inversely proportional to each other.

Aside from this, the biggest stumbling block for Rajender even to broach the topic of enticing someone is in the form of the party’s state unit president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, also MP from Karimnagar.

His absolute lack of clarity of thought that translates into gibberish when it comes to speeches and his controversial statements at the drop of a hat are weaning away hardcore RSS supporters too, leave alone onboarding a leader.

The BJP is losing fizz and the latest internal assessments have purportedly played out against Bandi Sanjay’s blunders, for his follies apparently punctured whatever little popularity the party massed through the by-election of Rajender in Huzurabad.

The strategy to woo financially strong leaders selectively and force a by-election on individual constituencies boomeranged with Munugode, for the deal between Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy and the BJP could successfully portrayed as a “quid pro quo” arrangement between them. BRS Working President K T Rama Rao had pulled all stops to project this and derive the desired result in Munugode by-election, caused by the BJP itself.

A senior BJP functionary, strictly on the condition of anonymity, told NewsTAP that the BJP did not understand Telangana’s body politik. It’s not the proverbial one size that fits all. The BJP leadership was thinking that what’s good for the goose should also be good for the gander. It’s, however, not so. The political chemistry changes completely between two States also. For instance, the nature of politics of Telangana are starkly contrasting compared to Andhra Pradesh. How could the rules used in the States, where the BJP’s plans attained fruition, be applied in a State which had witnessed a remarkable metamorphosis in terms of development and welfare, he asked. He clandestinely admitted that KCR has delivered and is continuing to do so.

Third reason why Rajender opted out of the task is that he cannot assure anyone of anything on behalf of the party. Without a concrete promise, nobody will come. Encouraging the admission of disgruntled elements like the bariatric surgeon Bura Narsaiah Goud would only add flab, but not strength.

Hardly six months before the poll mode, the Telangana BJP does not foresee blooming flowers, but is suffering from wilted petals.