The high-drama at a farmhouse near Aziznagar on the outskirts of Hyderabad, where the Cyberabad police claimed to have busted a racket of poaching of four Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLAs by the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday night, has kicked up several doubts.
Assuming that the BJP was really trying to poach the four MLAs – Rega Kantha Rao (Pinapaka), B Harshavardhan Reddy (Kollapur), Pilot Rohit Reddy (Tandur) and Guvvala Balaraju (Achampet), one wonders whether there is any such need for the BJP to do in such a secretive manner.
Going by the poaching methods adopted by the BJP till now, the saffron party leadership has done it right royally. The four MLAs would be first asked to meet state BJP president Bandi Sanjay and then would be called to Delhi for a formal joining.
They had done in the case of Rajagopal Reddy or Bura Narsaiah or D K Aruna or any other such leader. Only if the BJP wants to dislodge any opposition government in any non-BJP state, it would take up secret operation to poach majority of the MLAs; not just three or four MLAs.
In case of Telangana, the BJP would not gain anything by luring these four MLAs. Even if it wants to dislodge the KCR government, it has to lure more than 40 MLAs and at this stage, when the assembly elections are just a few months away, there is no such necessity for the BJP.
Even if the BJP wants to engineer defection of these four MLAs to inflict a moral blow on the TRS ahead of Munugode by-poll, it will not be of much help to it, as the four MLAs are not worthy of poaching by paying Rs 100 crore each. Analysts say they cannot even win their own seats in the next elections.
So, why would the BJP send little-known mediators from Delhi and Tirupati to poach these four MLAs? This is the major doubt.
Another section of the media believes that the entire operation must be true. The scene was obviously created by the TRS – the farmhouse belongs to Rohit Reddy, where he might have invited the so-called BJP mediators and the other three MLAs for bargaining as part of the operation.
A select group of television channel reporters was called well in advance to do the sting operation and the Cyberabad police arranged secret cameras much before the BJP mediators and the MLAs arrived there to record everything.
When the mediators began bargaining the deal, it was recorded on the secret cameras and as the conversation ended, the police entered the scene and detained the three mediators, as per the original plan.
“The entire operation was completed as per the directions from Pragati Bhavan. Apparently, KCR wanted to expose the BJP’s poaching operation. So, he took the help of the channels and the Cyberabad police,” sources said.
The police are expected to release the videos and audios of the sting operation to expose the BJP’s exercise. It remains to be seen who will gain the upper hand in the entire episode!