It’s raining tickets for turncoats in Telangana Premium

Lok Sabha elections in Telangana see Congress, BRS, and BJP fielding turncoats, with BRS facing defections and BJP aiming for dominance.

The Congress, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are all fielding turncoats to improve their chances in the Lok Sabha elections. However, the party that is facing the brunt of these defections is the BRS.

In the 2019 elections, the BRS won nine Lok Sabha seats, followed by the BJP with four, and the Congress with three. But today, five BRS MPs — B. Venkatesh Nethakani (Peddapalli SC), B.B. Patil (Zaheerabad), P. Ramulu (Nagarkurnool SC), Pasunuri Dayakar (Warangal SC) and G. Ranjit Reddy (Chevella) — have already defected to other parties. While Mr. Venkatesh, Mr. Dayakar, and Mr. Ranjit Reddy have crossed over to the Congress, the other two have defected to the BJP. Mr. Patil was named a BJP candidate from Zaheerabad a day after joining the saffron party and Mr. Ramulu’s son, P. Bharat, has been chosen as the BJP’s Nagarkurnool candidate.

Sensing the deepening crisis, party supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao announced the BRS’s first list of candidates for four Lok Sabha seats. The names included two sitting MPs — Nama Nageswara Rao (Khammam) and Maloth Kavitha (Mahabubabad). Had he not acted in time, the two leaders would have mostly left the party, say sources.

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But the BRS remains wary of the intentions of its remaining MPs. Mr. Rao and BRS executive working president K.T. Rama Rao have been holding meetings with leaders at the parliamentary constituency level to instil confidence in them.

The only solace for the BRS was the decision of Telangana Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and former IPS officer R.S. Praveen Kumar to join the party. Last week, the BRS and BSP announced an alliance after Dr. Kumar met with Mr. Rao. This came as a big relief for Mr. Rao as the BRS was hard-pressed for a candidate in the Nagarkurnool SC constituency, where the sitting MP had crossed over to the BJP. When the BSP leadership reportedly forced the State unit chief to call off the alliance, Dr. Kumar quit and joined the BRS and is now set to contest from Nagarkurnool.

Dr. Kumar hails from the influential Madiga sub-caste among the SCs, who form at least 10% of the Dalit voters in Telangana. The total SC population in the State is 18%. Parties have always tried hard to attract the votes of the Madigas ahead of the polls. Earlier last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a rally organised by the Madiga Reservation Porata Samiti leader, Manda Krishna Madiga, who wields considerable influence in the community. But the rally did not benefit the BJP in the Assembly elections.