The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Telangana has been making inroads in the state ever since the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) led by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao came to power for a second term. After winning the Dubbaka Assembly bye-poll and increasing its presence in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), the BJP recently took former state minister Eatala Rajender into its fold. Eatala, who was a close aide of KCR and part of the TRS since its inception, was ousted from the state cabinet amid high political drama that unfolded over allegations of land grabbing against him.
Eatala said that he was quitting the TRS and joining the BJP, dubbing it a fight for “self respect”. While leaving the party, Eatala kept asserting that he is the son of “weaker sections” in the state and there was a conspiracy to assassinate his character with land grabbing allegations. Though Congress had first reached out to Eatala, political analysts say that it was the BJP's larger Other Backward Classes/ Backward Classes (OBC/BC) consolidation attempt that pulled him into its fold, considering the scenario of the 2023 Assembly elections.
Read: Sacked from Telangana CM KCR’s cabinet, all eyes on Eatala Rajender’s next move
OBCs are said to consist over 56% of the population in Telangana and a large chunk of them, are the apparent base for the BJP. Having Eatala, who comes from Mudhiraj community, which is one of the largest groups in the BCs in Telangana, may help ease the BJP’s social engineering to some extent, analysts say. However, they add that the deal between Eatala and the BJP will not be fruitful beyond the Huzurabad bye-election and it is very unlikely to create a pan-Telangana phenomenon.
What the BJP says
The BJP says that Eatala Rajender’s move to join the party will be beneficial to them. “BJP is a national party and locally, if there is a mass leader of a standing like Eatala Rajender who is a former minister in the incumbent government, when he joins, it will be advantageous. The advantages are electoral and political....We do believe that Eatala Rajender will add value to the party and strengthen the party’s base because he is a mass leader,” K Krishna Saagar Rao, Chief Spokesperson, BJP Telangana, told TNM.
When asked about the consolidation of OBC votes, he added, “We are not a party which works on a caste basis. We are certainly careful about social justice and social representation across the spectrum. But we do not base our politics on caste. Any political party should accommodate all sections of the society and certainly weaker and oppressed sections. So it is natural that a party of our stature and size has internal mechanisms of ensuring that social representation is normalised. We don't need to do anything special to attract one particular caste or section because we are an ideologically driven party.”
Though the party’s leadership denies that it indulges in caste-based accommodation of OBCs, along with the BJP's state president, two of the four MPs and its national OBC wing president are from the Munnuru Kapu community, which is one of the communities with political aspirations after Reddys and Velamas in Telangana.
Huzurabad a litmus test?
While quitting the TRS, Rajendar had also tendered his resignation on June 4 as the Huzurabad MLA. He is likely to contest in the bye-polls as a BJP candidate. In 2018, Huzurabad Eatala won with 1,04,840 votes from the TRS while the Congress candidate stood second with 61,121 votes and the BJP at fifth place with a mere 1,683 votes. It has to be seen whether Eatala, who is being seen as one of the strong leaders who can take on KCR in the state, can better the BJP’s prospects
Reports suggest that political parties have already hit the ground and are reaching out to people to ensure their victory. The TRS is said to be planning to rope in a retired IAS officer to contest against Eatala.
Can Eatala make a difference?
Senior political commentator Palwai Raghavendra Reddy says, "Firstly, the so-called OBC consolidation is not possible in Telangana given the diverse nature of the community. With Eatala joining BJP, the party will get a miniscule benefit. But if he loses, it will affect the BJP as well."
Dr Balaboyina Sudharshan, Assistant Professor of political science in Osmania University however, says that Eatala joining the BJP will boost the morale of its cadres and create a larger consensus, diluting the communal image that the party has. Eatala Rajender, who began his career with the ideology of the Left, in an interesting statement, asserted that he would take support from two rival groups like the RSU (Radical Students Union), a far-Left student group and RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) to defeat CM KCR and the TRS.
Some observers say that Eatala joining the BJP has its own limitations. Manikanta Pallikonda, independent research scholar and a columnist observed, "Eatala joining BJP at this stage can have a slight positive effect to the BJP but not to BCs in general in the state. Through Eatala, BJP consolidating BCs across the state is a difficult task, as KCR has populist strategies and welfare schemes.”