Will BJP’s BC card pay off in TS polls?

BJP gambles on BC CM pick to boost Telangana poll prospects; other parties on defensive, BCs to decide fate of candidates in North Telangana; BJP's move to woo back Munnuru Kapus; OBC Bill in Parliament to empower BCs.

The event at Suryapet would have been a routine election rally addressed by top politicians. But for Union Minister of Home Affairs and Cooperation Amit Shah announcing that if the BJP were voted to power in Telangana, it would make a Backward Class leader the Chief Minister.

This time around, the BJP has taken a calculated risk to boost its prospects in the no-holds-barred elections scheduled for November 30. At the same time, its announcement has also pushed the other contenders — the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) and the Congress — on the defensive.

In tune with its focus on the BC communities, the party has given tickets to 20 candidates from these communities in its first list of 52 candidates. The Congress, on the other hand, has only 19 BC candidates between two lists announcing contestants for over 100 constituencies; only 22 of the 119 candidates of the BRS are from BC communities. Backward Classes constitute 52% of the total population of 3.82 crore in the State as per the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) data this year.

The credit for giving the Backward Classes their place of pride goes to the late N. T. Rama Rao’s Telugu Desam Party, which made its electoral debut in the 1983 elections in united Andhra Pradesh and rode to power ousting Congress party’s 36 years of uninterrupted rule. Little-known BC leaders became legislators and went on to play key roles in the TDP government.

Ahead of the 2014 elections, BRS (then Telangana Rashtra Samithi) chief K. Chandrashekar Rao had promised to save the post of Chief Minister of the new State of Telangana for a person from the Scheduled Caste. In the run-up to the present elections, BRS working president and Mr. Rao’s son K.T. Rama Rao acknowledged that the party had not fulfilled this promise. However, at a Meet the Press event held in Hyderabad two days ago, he remarked, “But, people have approved the stand and supported our party by giving a higher majority in the 2018 election compared to 2014.”

The saffron party intends to play out the narrative that the BRS never delivers on its poll promises. The BRS, meanwhile, intends to focus on the BC angle. Mr. Rama Rao mentioned that his party has been championing the cause of Backward Classes since 2014. “It is our party that first raised the demand for BC census and creation of a separate OBC Ministry at the Centre. The first session of the Telangana Assembly in 2014 had adopted a resolution urging Centre to take up BC census, reserving 33% quota in law making bodies,” he remarked.

The BJP is also targeting the Congress on the grounds that the number of seats given to the BCs is not proportional to their population. It has pointed out the anger and discontent among Congress’s BC leaders, who were ignored in ticket distribution.