With BJP state unit president G Kishan Reddy not willing to hold the post for a second term, senior leader and former MLA Baddam Bal Reddy has begun lobbying within the party and among the Sangh Parivar for coveted position.
The party has completed organisational elections in 12 districts and will hold polls in the rest of the state in the next few weeks. According to the party’s constitution, if the state committee completes elections to half of the district committees, it can conduct election to the state president’s post, probably in the last week of February or first week of March.
Kishan Reddy has already declared that he is not interested in having another term. He is believed to be trying to become party’s national general secretary. The present national secretaries, P Muralidhar Rao and K Laxman, are also eyeing the general secretary’s post. Sources said party president Rajnath Singh will constitute a new executive committee in the coming few days. Party high command will turn its attention to the state party affairs only later.
The 67-year-old Bal Reddy, who has been in the party right from Jan Sangh days, has met several senior leaders of the BJP and the RSS in Hyderabad and Delhi. He was elected as MLA for four consecutive terms from Karwan in the old city of Hyderabad. Before Kishan became state president, Bal Reddy had aspired to the post but the party high command preferred the younger leader. Bal Reddy is testing his luck again.
Laxman said it would not matter much who would become the party’s state unit president as the party would take collective decisions.