After rising to power like a phoenix bird and becoming chief minister of Telangana, bypassing claims of several senior leaders, A Revanth Reddy now officially `opened’ his party gate so as to attract BRS leaders and dismantle the main opposition in the state.
Interestingly, he moved into action in this direction only after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had reportedly assured him all the support from the center to `dismantle’ BRS. Both national parties Congress and BJP are of the view that they can dominate Telangana political scene only by crushing powerful regional parties. It may be recalled in no other state, where regional parties are dominating the scene, these two parties are able to strengthen themselves.
Moreover, after defeat in assembly elections, BRS is suffocating ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Collapse of Kaleshwaram project pullers, Kavitha’s arrest, phone tapping and many other issues making KCR voiceless and in offensive like never before. Taking KCR’s miserable position as an advantage now ‘opening up of gates’ will really benefit him to strengthen his position within Congress? Is the real question now worrying many.
It may be recalled that earlier, as Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu also with the same strategy engineering as many as 23 YSRCP MLAs to defect into his party and given ministerial berths to four of them. But ultimately, except one, all were defeated in the 2019 elections. And those defections didn’t stop YS Jaganmohan Reddy from coming to power.
In the same way, though large scale defections engineered by KCR gave an impression that Congress was losing its base in Telangana, ultimately he was defeated by the `weakened’ Congress only. Moreover, large scale defections created internal problems to both Chandrababu Naidu and KCR in their own parties, as the original party cadre failed to identify themselves with `outsiders’.
Encouraging large scale defection Revanth Reddy may succeed to weaken BRS for the time being. But unless he focuses his attention on governance and creating a feeling of `security’ to all variety of Congress leaders, it may be difficult for himself to survive for a long time. Moreover, defections will multiply internal contradictions in the Congress party, posing a new variety of challenges to him.
