BJP ‘main rival’, Congress ‘main electoral challenger’, says BRS politburo member, as KCR distances from Opp unity efforts

Congress leaders said that despite a popular pro-BRS wave in the December 2018 Assembly elections, their party had managed to win 21 seats in the 119-seat Telangana Assembly. They said since then, anti-incumbency against BRS has increased, putting the Congress at an advantage.

BRS politburo member B Vinod acknowledged Congress remains the number one political rival of the BRS. “On many issues, the BJP is our main rival, but as far as electoral politics is concerned, Congress continues to be our main challenger. Our strategy will be to counter the Congress, as we believe the BJP won’t be a factor in more than 5-10 Assembly seats,” he said.

Last Sunday, while addressing a public gathering at Nirmal, where he inaugurated the party’s new office building, KCR launched into an unusual attack on the Congress. While he usually goes after the BJP, on Sunday he told the people to teach Congress a lesson and throw it into the Bay of Bengal.

Emboldened by the Karnataka success, several Congress leaders, including TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy, former Minister Mohammed Shabbir Ali, and others have been pointing out glitches in the Dharani — the land records management portal of government of Telangana — and have been suggesting that Congress will scrap it. TPCC also announced today that it will also scrap contributory pension scheme and bring in a guaranteed pension scheme in its place.

A large number of state government employees appear to be in favour of a guaranteed pension scheme rather than the existing contributory pension scheme.

KCR raised this issue at the Sunday rally. “Congress wants to bring corruption back to the land registration system, hence they want to scrap Dharani. You should throw the Congress in the Bay of Bengal. Beware of parties that will scrap all welfare schemes by the BRS government if they come to power,” KCR said.

While the win in Karnataka has visibly boosted Congress’s confidence in Telangana, the BRS also believes the Karnataka loss has weakened the BJP in the state, and that it would get weaker as more and more infighting between various factions of the state unit come to light. “As elections draw nearer, the differences between factions led by Bandi Sanjay Kumar and Etela Rajender, and the faction against Sanjay Kumar, will come out in the open. This will further weaken the party, with infighting leaving it incapable of mounting the kind of fight the BRS had been anticipating only a few months ago,” said a BRS leader.

BJP sources said the party central leadership has directed Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar to iron out differences within the state unit, ahead of visits by Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president J P Nadda and national general secretary Tarun Chugh to address a series of public meetings.