Eminent political strategist Prashant Kishor predicted that in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly polls will be held alongside the Lok Sabha elections, Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy will find it “very difficult” to come back.
Kishor had worked for Reddy in 2019 when his YSRCP party had vanquished the incumbent Telugu Desam Party, now a BJP ally. Reddy, like former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, has gone into a “provider” mode for his constituents, instead of being a fulfiller of people’s aspirations, he added.
Kishor has likened the present situation in Andhra Pradesh to the yesteryear monarchs, who took care of their people with doles and largesse but nothing more. Similarly, he said that Reddy has ensured cash transfers to people but has done little to provide jobs or boost the stagnating development of the state, he said.
In an interaction with PTI editors, Kishor asserted that the BJP is unlikely to win 370 seats, its target set for the polls, but may win 300 seats. He said the BJP will feel the heat only if the opposition, especially the Congress, can ensure that it loses at least around 100 seats in its strongholds of north and west India. And that’s not going to happen, he says.
With opposition parties coming together to form the INDIA bloc to take on the BJP, he said an alliance is neither desirable nor effective to defeat the ruling party as there is already a one-on-one contest in nearly 350 seats.
The BJP has been winning because parties like the Congress, Samajwadi Party, RJD, NCP and Trinamool Congress are unable to take it head-on in their own turf, he said. They have no narrative, face or agenda, he added.
He said that despite the BJP’s apparent dominance, neither the party nor Prime Minister Narendra Modi is invincible, pointing out that the opposition had three distinct and realistic chances of stopping the BJP juggernaut but frittered away the opportunities because of laziness and misplaced strategies.
“They (BJP) will either be the first or second party in Telangana, which is a big thing. They will be number one in Odisha for sure. You would be surprised, as, in all likelihood, to my mind, the BJP is going to be the number one party in West Bengal,” he said.
In Tamil Nadu, he said, the BJP’s vote share may hit a double-digit percentage. Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Kerala together account for 204 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, but the BJP couldn’t cross 50 seats in all these states put together either in 2014 or 2019, when it won 29 and 47 constituencies, respectively.
