Ending weeks of 'infighting drama' in the Telangana BJP unit, the BJP national leadership on Tuesday removed Bandi Sanjay from the post of Telangana BJP president and appointed Union Minister G Kishan Reddy in his place.
These new developments come at a time when Assembly elections in Telangana are just four to five months away in December.
Kishan Reddy working as the BJP state president is nothing new. Kishan Reddy previously headed the BJP in Undivided Andhra Pradesh.
At a time when the BJP claims that it is the only alternative to BRS in Telangana and is confident of coming to power in Telangana in December this year, questions are being raised in the BJP as well as political circles about whether Kishan Reddy has the potential to bring the BJP to power in Telangana.
During his earlier stint as the BJP state president, Kishan Reddy was never successful in taking the BJP beyond his Amberpet constituency, from where he was elected thrice.
Not just Kishan Reddy, but even the BJP did not grow beyond Hyderabad under the leadership of Bandaru Dattatreya, K Laxman, etc.
It was during the tenure of Bandi Sanjay, who was appointed as the Telangana BJP president in 2020, that the situation of the BJP improved.
The party grew beyond Hyderabad and put up its best performance in the GHMC polls, Dubbak, and Huzurabad Assembly bypolls.
Sanjay managed to decimate Congress as the main opposition in Telangana, and the BJP emerged as a strong alternative to BRS.
At this juncture, when everyone was confident that the BJP would face the Assembly polls under the leadership of Sanjay, infighting and dissidence surfaced in the BJP against Sanjay, primarily fueled by Etala Rajender and Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, who switched from BRS and Congress, respectively.
They built pressure on the BJP national leadership to change Bandi Sanjay, arguing that Sanjay had no potential to defeat BRS in the Assembly polls.
But the question being raised now is whether Kishan Reddy has the potential to defeat BRS, as Kishan Reddy is not as aggressive as Bandi Sanjay and not the kind of mass leader who can motivate party workers and influence voters.
The buzz in BRS circles, as well as political circles, is that the party's national leadership has committed a blunder by appointing Kishan Reddy in place of Bandi Sanjay ahead of the Assembly polls, and the party has given up in Telangana even before the Assembly polls by doing so.