BRS relying on booth panels as much as star campaigners

The party leadership is also not hesitating to show the door to some dissidents whose attitude is causing a headache to it.

hyderabad

With the campaigning for Assembly elections heading into the decisive phase in Telangana as the three major political parties have finalised their candidates except for a few seats, the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is ahead in electioneering while the rival Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are facing a bout of dissidence over denial of tickets.

Compared to the two rival parties, the ruling BRS has lesser dissent to cope with due to the fact that it had announced candidates in late August, giving itself the cushion of over two months to deal with the disharmony. The time gap between announcement of candidates and issuance of election notification has allowed the dissent to settle down in BRS to a large extent with the efforts of the party leadership to convince the dissidents or some leaders parting ways, much before it raised its ugly head in the rival parties.

The party leadership is also not hesitating to show the door to some dissidents whose attitude is causing a headache to it as it happened in Kamareddy. It is also keeping doors open for all and sundry from the rival parties by recognising the fact that every vote matters in electoral politics. Working president of the party K.T. Rama Rao is of the view that “admitting leaders from rival parties not only adds to the strength of BRS in the electoral battle but also weakens the rivals in some measure or the other”.

“Limiting dissidence by the time campaigning moves into the decisive phase was one of the main objectives of early announcement of candidates. It has not only allowed the candidates to buy peace with other aspirants in the party, if possible, or to move ahead without their support reaching out to the electorate in a majority of areas in the constituencies directly almost twice already,” explained a senior BRS leader.

Apart from the whirlwind tour of constituencies by party president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and campaigning by other key leaders such as T. Harish Rao, K.T. Rama Rao and B. Vinod Kumar along with the contenders themselves, the party is also relaying on its booth level committees to reach out to the electorate as many times as possible repeatedly.

Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao has addressed election rallies in 36 constituencies between October 15 and November 7 and is scheduled to attend another 58 between November 8 and 28 to make it a whopping 94 out of 119 constituencies.