If the reports from New Delhi are to be believed, Bharatiya Janata Party national leadership is contemplating bringing Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar back as the state party president in Telangana ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
According to these reports, the party is not happy with the way Union minister G Kishan Reddy handled the electioneering of the party in the just concluded assembly elections. In fact, the party could get at least eight seats and put up an impressive show in another 25-30 seats only because of Sanjay.
The Karimnagar MP might have lost his own assembly seat in Karimnagar, but that is because he was not allowed to concentrate on the constituency and was given the star campaigner status to tour entire Telangana.
“And wherever Sanjay campaigned aggressively, the BJP won the assembly seats. Even in other constituencies, too, the BJP could get a good percentage of votes only because of the Praja Sangrama Yatra undertaken by Sanjay,” sources said.
While the local factors played a major role in Telangana in the assembly elections, the upcoming Lok Sabha elections would be completely Modi-centric and Hindutva issue is going to be a major factor.
The BJP may want to use the same strategy with redoubled vigour to improve on its 2019 score in four Lok Sabha seats in Telangana — Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, and Secunderabad — from where Soyam Bapu Rao, D Arvind, B Sanjay Kumar, and G Kishan Reddy won the polls respectively.
As Hindutva is going to be the BJP’s main weapon, there is a move to reappoint Bandi Sanjay as the Telangana unit president to rekindle the Hindutva passion and help the party improve its tally of Lok Sabha seats, sources said.