Intense Political Shakeup in Telangana

It is indeed a high powered campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Telangana where the party which currently has four members in the Lok Sabha from the state which sends 17 and is now aspiring to cross the 400 mark.

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Modi who has already visited the state four times this year and each time making a scathing attack on his two main rivals – Congress and the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) – is leaving no stone unturned in the saffron party’s efforts with the state slated for a single day polling on May 13 which is the fourth phase.

With the Congress having come to power in 2023 Assembly polls in the state bagging 64 of the 119 seat in the Assembly with the ruling BRS getting 39 seats while BJP came a poor third with eight seats.

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In the previous 2019 general election, the BRS, formerly Telangana Rashtra Samithi or TRS won 9 seats, BJP won four, and Congress won 3, while All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi retained the party’s sole seat from the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency.

This time, the BRS is contesting in an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). As per their seat sharing agreement, BSP will contest from two seats, and BRS will field its candidates from the remaining 15. However, just before the poll schedule was announced, BSP state president RS Praveen Kumar announced that he was quitting the party. BRS has already announced the names of 11 candidates, including former MLA Atram Sakku from Adilabad, and sitting MP Nama Nageswara Rao from Khammam.

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Having been defeated in the Assembly elections, the BRS is now seeing a wave of defections. Its Nagarkurnool (SC) MP Pothuganti Ramulu, Zaheerabad (SC) MP BB Patil, as well as former MPs Sitaram Naik and Godam Nagesh, and ex-MLAs Saidi Reddy and Jalgam Venkat Rao have switched over to the BJP in recent weeks. The Zaheerabad and Nagarkurnool MPs have both been given BJP tickets to re-contest from their sitting constituencies.

Meanwhile, BRS MP from Peddapalli, Venkatesh Netha Borlakunta, has shifted to the Congress party. So far, Congress has announced four candidates from Telangana —  former MP Suresh Kumar Shetkar from Zahirabad (ST) constituency, Challa Vamshi Chand Reddy from Mahabubnagar,  senior Congress leader K Jana Reddy's son Raghuveer Kunduru from Nalgonda and Balram Naik from Mahabubabad (ST).

BJP on the other hand has announced the names of nine candidates. Telangana BJP chief G Kishan Reddy, the sitting Secunderabad MP, will contest again from the constituency. Sitting MPs Bandi Sanjay Kumar and Arvind Dharmapuri will re-contest from Karimnagar and Nizamabad again. Eatala Rajender, who lost the 2023 Assembly polls, will contest from the Malkjgiri constituency, previously held by Telangana Chief Minister and Congress leader Revanth Reddy.

For the Hyderabad seat, BJP has decided to field K Madhavi Latha, the chairperson of Virinchi Hospitals, against AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. The seat has been the AIMIM’s stronghold since 1989, and Owaisi has won the past four Lok Sabha elections from here. Madhavi Latha, who has become increasingly visible on YouTube channels in recent months, has made several communal remarks in many of her interviews. Recently, speaking at the pre-release event of the controversial film Razakar: The Silent Genocide of Hyderabad produced by a BJP leader and releasing just before the Lok Sabha polls, Madhavi Latha referred to Owaisi as a ‘Razakar’. She went on to claim that Hindus in his constituency were “unsafe” because of Owaisi. “Even today, some people urinate in temples. This is not a Muslim but an individual acting as per the orders of Razakar,” Madhavi said. 

The Razakars were a paramilitary force under the Nizam rule who brutally attacked villagers and activists of the Telangana peasant struggle led by the Communist Party of India (CPI). However, the visuals of the Razakar film were criticised for seeming blatantly Islamophobic. The BJP has been accused of repeatedly invoking the complicated history of Telangana people’s armed struggle against landlords under the Nizam rule, and communalising it to attack their present-day political opponents, BRS and AIMIM.

Congress played a key role in the formation of the state as on  July 30, 2013, the Congress Working Committee unanimously passed a resolution to recommend the formation of a separate Telangana state. After various stages the bill was placed in Parliament of India in February 2014 and the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 bill was passed by the Parliament of India for the formation of Telangana state, comprising ten districts from north-western Andhra Pradesh. The bill received the assent of the president and was published in the Gazette on March one, 2014.

The state was officially formed on June two, 2014.

The state has a total of 2,95,30,838 electors, comprising 1,48,42,582 men, 1,46,74,217 women, and 2,089 from the third gender, according to the Nation Election Planner reports.
In the 2014 general elections, the BJP secured 4 seats, INC 3, TRS 9, and AIMIM 1. However, in the subsequent 2019 elections, TRS emerged
victorious in 11 out of the 17 seats.
Riding on its success in the recent Legislative Assembly polls, the ruling Congress in Telangana is banking on the implementation of its poll 'guarantees' to score big in the Lok Sabha elections. The morale of Congress cadre is high following the 2023 win. The BJP, riding high on its growing voter base in Telangana, is now aiming to win over 12 out of the total 17 seats and 35 per cent vote share, in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress leadership maintain that the influx of leaders from the BRS is expected to play a significant role in helping the party achieve its target of 14-plus of the state’s total 17 Lok Sabha seats.