Amit Shah, Union Home Minister and G Kishan Reddy, BJP State President & Union Minister of Tourism, Culture Development of North Eastern Region and others at the BJP State Level Meeting.
| Photo Credit: RAMAKRISHNA G
The issue of leadership of the BJP legislature party continues to be in suspense, even as Union Home Minister Amit Shah held at least three meetings with top leaders, including the newly-elected eight MLAs, during his one-day visit to Telangana on Thursday.
Three-time Goshamahal MLA T. Raja Singh should have been the natural choice but party grapevine is that there is opposition from within the newly-elected group and also from the Central leadership.
Nirmal MLA A. Maheshwar Reddy is being considered as the alternative choice or even ‘giant killer’ K. Venkatramana Reddy, who won from Kamareddy.
Mr. Shah was supposed to have decided on the leadership issue as he even had a separate meeting with the new MLAs.
Mr. Singh was suspended from the party for a year for his remarks against the minority community and it was lifted just before the Assembly polls, where he had won handsomely again, as expected. But, Mr. Singh has been missing in action when his fellow MLAs had addressed press conferences at the Assembly and also at the party office later.
Temple consecration
Apart from this, the Home Minister’s exhortation to Telangana leaders at a party conclave in the outskirts of the city was about the importance of consecration of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya next month and how it is going to play a big role in the party’s campaign for Lok Sabha polls.
Partymen were reminded about how the temple issue had helped BJP grow from two MPs to more than 300 now, and the ‘sacrifices’ as well as contributions made by various leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, over the years, leading to the construction of the grand temple. The message along with the Centre’s welfare schemes should be taken to every household, he emphasised.
Mr. Shah was said to have expressed satisfaction over the party’s performance in TS elections and also doubling of the voting percentage. The effort should be to take the voting percentage to 35% when it could come to power here. He promised that he would keep coming to TS often till the party is voted to power and Mr. Modi himself had entrusted him this task.
But, for that to happen, the partymen should maintain discipline, desist from one-upmanship, social media post wars, complaining against each other and join forces. The target should be to win more than 10 seats in LS polls, he said.
Taking the line of TS BJP president and Union Minister for Culture, Tourism and Development of Northeast G. Kishan Reddy, he observed that the party had played a big role in dethroning the “corrupt family rule of BRS” but the Congress had benefitted. So, the focus should be to defeat another “family-run” party in the next elections.
Earlier, he visited the Bhagyalakshmi Temple at Charminar and held prayers in the presence of Mr. Reddy, Rajya Sabha MP K. Laxman and others.
