Major political parties in Telangana see face-off between newcomers and veterans

The Telangana BJP is going through a difficult phase. It appears that the turbulence usually noticed on one side of Nampally Road has now shifted to the opposite side as well. The Congress and the BJP headquarters are on this historic street in the older part of Hyderabad. While Gandhi Bhavan is no stranger to infighting and groupism, the Shyam Prasad Mukherji Bhavan is now witnessing similar scenes. The bunch of new and senior leaders in the BJP don't seem to be too happy with their older counterparts.

Etela Rajender, a politician who rose to prominence with radical left ideology during his student days and engaged in the separate Telangana movement through TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi), and a former BRS member, joined the saffron party in 2021 and won a by-election. Another senior leader, Komatreddy Rajagopal Reddy, a former MP and a long-time Congress leader, shifted to the BJP in 2022. Both leaders, evidently disgruntled with the party president Bandi Sanjay recently met Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. It is learned that the complaints flowed freely at the meeting.

While Bandi Sanjay began his political journey as an ABVP activist and as a kar sevak to Ayodhya, most of the recent entrants to the BJP have no connection with the Sangh Parivar or Hindutva ideology. While the newcomers' camp believes that Sanjay's rigid and self-centered attitude is pulling them down, the old-timers in the party feel that the new leaders need to have patience and understand the ideology of the party first.

"These people have emerged from revolutionary movements. The BJP is not like the Congress party, where there are abnormal levels of democracy. Here, everyone has to abide by the Sangh ideology and the systems in place. One cannot be too ambitious here. We do not work like that," said a BJP leader serving in an important party position, clearly siding with Sanjay.

Etala is being slammed for failing to induct important faces into the party, even though he has been bestowed with the post of the chief of joining committee. The detractors of Sanjay feel that he is not making the lives of these leaders any smoother. Speculation is rife that both Rajender and Rajagopal Reddy may jump into the Congress ship at an appropriate time if the continue to receive poor treatment.

Last year, two senior leaders, Swamy Goud and Dasoju Sravan, quit the BJP and joined the BRS after a brief stint with the saffron party. They developed differences with the BJP leadership on certain issues, including their style of functioning, according to the leaders who quit. The fact that some of the leaders are joining the BJP only to further their anti-BRS agenda and because it is the ruling party at the Centre is not going down well with the veterans who are rooted in the BJP's ideology. It is evident that the new crop of leaders stops short of making any provocative comments related to religion and doesn't necessarily agree with the party's strategy at all times. At a time when the BJP is desperately trying to improve its performance, the gap between the two camps is widening and threatening to make the lotus fragrance ineffective.

The problem is not limited to the BJP. The Congress faced a similar situation a few months back. The party president, A. Revanth Reddy, was a TDP leader for a long time. He shifted to Congress in 2017 along with a few other leaders from the TDP and became a party president in 2021. From the time he took over the top post, some of the seniors who spent decades in the party openly expressed their displeasure. It reached a breaking point last year when recent 'migrants' to the party were accused of propping up their own lobby, sidelining the old-timers and diluting the Congress ideology. Revanth was accused of filling up the important posts of district Congress committees (DCC) with his own men who were affiliated with TDP at some point. Standing against him were senior leaders like Uttam Kumar Reddy, Bhatti Vikramarka, Sridhar Babu, Komatreddy Venkat Reddy, among others. The crisis saw the appointment of a new AICC in-charge for Telangana, Manikrao Thakare. Congress today is a calmer house, but the fissure still exists.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), formerly TRS, being a regional party controlled by a central figure, K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), had similar issues but dealt with them quietly. The BRS went through two cycles of crisis. In the aftermath of state bifurcation and the party's victory in state elections in 2014, a number of senior leaders from TDP and Congress made their way to the BRS. At that time, there was discontent among those who were associated with the party during the entire period of agitation. The new set of leaders back then—Talasani Srinivas Yadav, Malla Reddy, Danam Nagender, and D Srinivas—who joined from the TDP and the Congress, were given ministries or Rajya Sabha seats or accorded importance within the party. What caused heartburn to those who have been with the party throughout was that some of these entrants were not even vocal champions of a separate Telangana state. Cut to the present, the differences within the party are of a different kind.

Between the 2018 state elections and the present, more than a dozen MLAs have crossed over to BRS from other parties or shed independent status. The BRS won 88 seats in 2018, but today, the party has more than 100 MLAs in the Telangana assembly. The jostle for tickets has begun, with the defeated candidates of the party feeling insecure about the new entrants who defeated them and entered the party. Though the party tried to accommodate the losing candidates, there are still multiple ticket aspirants for single seats. In hushed tones, party members criticize the party's policy to rope in other party winners against whom they fought tooth and nail. "The loyal workers who fought and lost are dumped, and those who defeated our party are felicitated by a grand welcome," said a party leader who did not wish to be named.