The ruling Congress party in the state has widely opened its doors for the influx of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLAs. To date, seven BRS MLAs have joined the grand old party. At the same time, another national party, the BJP, which is ruling at the Centre and consolidating its position in the state, has adopted a polar opposite strategy of shutting its door to the BRS MLAs by insisting on leaders tendering resignations before joining their party. However, both the parties—with different approaches—seem to be working towards the common goal of eliminating their regional foe, the BRS.
In the recently concluded Assembly elections, the Congress won 64 Assembly seats out of 119 to gain power. The BRS party, which ruled the state for two consecutive terms under K. Chandrashekar Rao, won 39 seats. The BJP won eight Assembly seats. In the subsequent general elections, the BRS hit rock bottom, not winning a single seat out of the 17 parliament seats. However, the Congress and the BJP posted impressive numbers, winning eight MPs each.
The BRS tally went down as they lost a by-election necessitated by the death of a sitting BRS MLA. Since the Assembly elections, a total of seven BRS MLAs have joined Congress, bringing down its tally to 31. There are speculations that another dozen MLAs, elected mostly from the Greater Hyderabad region on BRS tickets, are willing to desert the party and move towards Congress. Since the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections are due next year, the Congress feels it would be a shot in the arm for the party, which has lost cadre and leadership in the capital city over the years when they were out of power.
According to sources, Chief Minister and state Congress President A. Revanth Reddy has been given a free hand by the Congress high command to deal with the issue of defections. A section of Congress leaders who wished to remain anonymous said that the party would attempt to reduce the BRS figure to less than 13 or one-third of the original seats won, as they can then replicate the playbook of BRS in past terms when they were in power. Between 2014 and 2019, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was merged with the BRS, and in 2019-2023, the Congress was merged with the BRS after two-thirds of their members defected and claimed their faction to be the genuine one to escape the anti-defection law.
What is the role of the BJP in the entire scenario? The BJP is strategically playing the role of a mute spectator and watching the weakening of the BRS. On their part, their policy of "resign-and-join" has repelled the legislators who wouldn’t risk spending huge amounts on by-elections, which even then cannot guarantee a victory. The default option for the BRS legislators who want to side with a party in power is only the Congress now. The BJP is of the opinion that the faster the BRS loses its relevance, the earlier it would be promoted to be the main opposition to the Congress. The political circles are abuzz that this is a well-thought-out strategy of the BJP and the Congress to kill the BRS, as the former believes that the latter is better cut out to execute the task.
The biggest hindrance to some of the BRS legislators joining the Congress is a section of Congress leaders who feel threatened by the competition within their constituencies or because they are on bad terms with some of the incoming leaders.