‘Victims of Naxal insurgencies’: BJP plays up its contribution in Telangana’s statehood movement

The party has distributed copies of a booklet to all its 300 delegates, titled ‘Victims of Naxal insurgencies’, naming the saffron party’s martyrs

As the Bharatiya Janata Party tries to position itself as an alternative to the TRS, the party is playing up its contribution in Telangana’s statehood movement. Apart from an exhibition at the venue of the conclave, the party has distributed copies of a booklet to all its 300 delegates, titled ‘Victims of Naxal insurgencies’.

The booklet traces the Naxalite movement, and the saffron party’s steps in various states, as well as listed the name of some of the martyrs. In the book’s preface, the party states, “When the Naxalites took recourse to mayhem in villages, killing anyone and everyone who contested their viewpoints, the workers of the RSS, ABVP and BJP resisted them.”

The book also charts the journey of the Sangh, and makes mention of the attacks on ABVP which began in 1971, and the student wing’s mass rally against Naxal violence on December 14, 1983. The BJP, the book says, lost four activists between 1982-83.

It also lists several martyrs of the movement, including Vinod Kumar Jha who died in Warangal in 1979, Yechuri Srinivas in Nalgonda in 1981, Sama Jagmohan Reddy in Warangal in 1982. Among the 38 martyrs mentioned are also ABVP Zonal Secretary B Krishnavardhan Reddy who passed away in Hyderabad in 1987, and district secretary M Jitender Reddy who passed away at Jagityal in 1987.

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The party has also set up an exhibition at the venue of the conclave, which makes mention of the Kakinada resolution in 1997 which supported the statehood movement, as well as pictures of BJP leaders during the struggle.

The message is part of the party’s strategic positioning ahead of the Assembly elections in 2023 in Telangana, where it is pitching a spirited counter to the ruling TRS.

Karnataka MLA and national general secretary CT Ravi said that the BJP’s contribution to the statehood movement cannot be ignored. “We supported the movement, and several Sangh and ABVP supporters, who believed in our ideology, suffered. In states we carved out, like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand that Atal ji created, it was an easy division, unlike Telangana that saw years of bloodshed,” Ravi said.