BJP deploying Central ministers to Telangana to explain PM's contribution to state

The BJP had won four Lok Sabha seats from the state in the 2019 polls – Secunderabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad

Elated by the success of its National Executive Committee meet and a mega public rally here, the BJP is ramping up its readiness for the Telangana elections.

The central leadership has now assigned union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Purushottam Rupala, Pralhad Joshi, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Mahendra Nath Pandey and few more as the “Pravas Ministers” for the 14 out of 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana.

Under the Lok Sabha Pravas Yojana, the BJP's public outreach programme in the constituencies it suffered defeat in the 2019 polls, the ministers' visits are to explain to voters about the Central government's grants and programmes benefiting them directly or indirectly.

“The TRS government claims every scheme as its own while it is the Centre which funds several welfare initiatives like food grains under the Garib Kalyan Yojana, gas connections under Ujjwala. The union minister interactions would help the Telangana public know what the Modi government is doing for them,” Premender Reddy, general secretary of Telangana BJP told DH.

The BJP had won four Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 polls – Secunderabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad. The Pravas list however includes Adilabad (ST reserved). “This is as the tribal dominated constituency is very vast and as we need to further strengthen the party there. In any case, we plan to cover the rest three LS constituencies also in later phases,” Reddy, who is the convenor of the Pravas Yojana programme here said.

The Secunderabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituencies are represented respectively by union tourism minister Kishan Reddy, state BJP chief Bandi Sanjay and Dharmapuri Aravind, an outspoken leader who had defeated chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's daughter K Kavitha.

According to the party leaders, the ministers are expected to tour in their allotted constituencies twice every month till the 2024 elections, with a two night stay-over every time. The Pravas tours are planned to begin from later this week. The 14 Parliament segments are divided into four clusters, with four central ministers given their responsibility.

The strategy is to cover all the assembly segments coming under these Lok Sabha seats, in time for the 2023 assembly elections falling in between. The BJP is operating in Telangana with the target of unseating Rao's TRS from power.

The BJP has in fact started connecting its national leaders with Telangana public utilising its NEC meet in Hyderabad. Leaders from other states, including Central ministers, former CMs, were sent to all the 119 assembly constituencies in Telangana to interact with the locals. For example, Tripura former CM Biplab Deb visited Adilabad in the northernmost part of Telangana while Gujarat former CM Vijay Rupani was in Jadcherla, a south Telangana constituency. Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai was in Nizamabad.