Why has Amit Shah cancelled his Telangana tour, Khammam public meeting?

HYDERABAD: Union Home Minister and BJP strongman Amit Shah has all of a sudden cancelled his Telangana tour slated for June 15. But, why? Is it really because of cyclone Biprajoy that’s likely to hit the Gujarat coast? Does it demand the presence of Union Home Minister to be present in the State even though he belongs to the State? After all, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi hails from the Biprajoy-hit State.

Though this is the guise taken to scrap the proposed visit, there seems to be more to it than meets the eye.

The BJP has just now launched its blow hot, blow cold attack on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy. Shah, a couple of days ago, launched a trenchant attack on Jagan at a public meeting in Visakhapatnam, throwing every one into confusion.

But, when it comes to Telangana, the battle lines are drawn very clearly and it’s the BJP which had precipitated the matters in the state. From being a rock solid supporter of decisions like demonetisation, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi supremo and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had drifted away to a diametrically opposite position and began breathing fire on the BJP and Modi-Shah duo.

Now the question of any truce between the duo is absolutely not even remote.

When a few leaders who parted ways with KCR began to hold parleys with local BJP leaders - or the other way round, the BJP was waiting in wings to embrace them.

The BJP’s ideological base and its party leadership evolving from that is now a passé.

The BJP had opened floodgates to let everyone and anyone to join its ranks.

Eatala Rajender, AP Jitender Reddy, actress Vijaya Shanti, D K Aruna, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy and a lot of others belong to the ilk of those who never had any brush with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) school of thought. For them, the BJP is just another political party they have crossed over to with a view to safeguarding their pecuniary and political interests.

However, it’s never mind for the top echelons of the present day BJP whose singular objective is to debilitate its detractors and gobble up the disgruntled leaders of other parties. In the case of Telangana, it’s obvious and embarrassingly glaring too. For, the BJP had endowed Eatala Rajender, who had extreme left leanings, with the position of a chairman of “joinings committee” (head of talent hunt).

Attracting leaders from other political dispensations, however, turned out to have conked off owing to a variety of reasons.

Ponguleti factor

Former minister Jupally Krishna Rao and former Khammam MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy were more vocal about their quitting the BRS and declared that they went “under the hammer” keeping their options open. The BJP leadership spared no efforts to square off the deal with them and luring them into its fold to buttress its base in erstwhile Mahbubnagar and Khammam districts.

But typical of Congress leaders they are, they weighed their options well and dropped sufficient hints that they were not ready to take the BJP bait. Instead, they are keen on joining their alma mater, the Congress, as they see that as emerging as a formidable alternative to the BRS in Telangana.

The BJP’s chips are down in Telangana what with its devastating performance in Karnataka Assembly elections. Also, the party is smitten by internal dissensions and group politics. Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay’s stature was too puny to conquer complete control over the party unit. He neither is articulate, nor is he clearheaded. His oratorical skills are abysmal. This predicament is turning out to be an impediment to the BJP’s luring operations.

The two important leaders, whom the BRS didn’t mind losing, have stayed engaged by all leaders of all parties. Finally, the duo have reached the threshold of the grand old party whose doors are wide open for them.

It’s not as if the leaders are awaiting with bated breath the billowing of white or black smoke of papacy from the “Vaticans” of the two national parties. After all, not always the dictum of ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ is the order. Some times, the seekers too get a chance to choose.

As a consequence, the pompously trumpeted public meeting of Amit Shah on June 15 was trumped by the choice of

Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, especially, to find his political future with the Congress,

As it is, the BJP hardly has any leader worth his salt or cadres in Khammam district. Signs of an impeding truck between the BJP and the Telugu Desam Party, the most discredited political party in Telangana, too forced Ponguleti to dump the idea of joining the BJP once and for all.

With Ponguleti looking the other way, the BJP had called off the Amit Shah show in Khammam. The Biprajoy cyclone saved the face of the BJP, which conveniently chickened out from holding a public meeting featuring the party strongman at the helm.

Amit ‘Show’ petered out in a whimper in Khammam. Sources said the Home Minister gave a piece of his mind to the Telangana BJP leaders for “misleading” him over Ponguleti’s prospective admission, depriving them of ‘joy’.