The announcement made by Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday that if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is voted to power in Telangana, it would make a leader from Backward Classes (BC) community as the chief minister of the state.
Shah made the statement while addressing an election rally at Suryapet.
He said BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao had promised to make a Dalit as the chief minister if his party was voted to power in 2014.
“He conveniently ignored his promise. He is now trying to project his son K T Rama Rao as his successor,” he criticised.
He announced that if the BJP comes to power in Telangana, it would make a BC leader as the chief minister.
“Can KCR make a similar announcement? He has not done anything for the BCs during his regime,” he said.
So far so good. But one wonders whether there are any takers for Shah’s announcement. Except in the BJP, it has not generated any major euphoria among the BC communities.
In fact, the BJP has offered to give one-third of the party tickets to BCs in Telangana, but there have been no takers for the tickets from the community.
Reason is simple: nobody believes that the BJP has any chances of winning the assembly elections.
“Shah knows pretty well that the BJP has no strength or network to win the assembly elections and come to power in Telangana. The feedback from the intelligence sources is that the party might not cross even a single digit in the elections,” an analyst said.
So, Shah has nothing to lose, if he makes such a statement, projecting a BC leader as the chief ministerial candidate.
“Secondly, he has not named anybody as the CM candidate. He could have named Bandi Sanjay or Eatala Rajender or for that matter, Dr K Laxman – all of them being BCs. He knows that naming anybody would lead to a chaos in the party,” the analyst said.
The analysts compare Shah’s announcement with that of Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu before 2014 assembly elections.
During the 2014 elections, Naidu announced All India BC welfare association president and popular leader R Krishnaiah as the CM candidate of the TDP for Telangana, if the TDP comes to power.
Everybody was aware that Naidu had made the statement knowing pretty well that the TDP cannot come to power in Telangana. But he just wanted to play the BC card to win a few seats.
He did not make a similar statement in Andhra Pradesh, because he wanted to grab the CM chair there. Similarly, Shah also made the same statement knowing fully well that the BJP cannot come to power in Telangana now, say the analysts.