HYDERABAD: Union Minister and president of the Republic Party of India (A) Ramdas Athawale was in the news for the wrong reasons. The Minister of State for Social Justice Empowerment has allegedly slapped a youth at a meeting in Amberpet in Maharashtra. This is one incident he would like to forget. There is one more thing he would like to forget - his misadventure at trying to ally with BJP for Telangana Assembly elections.
The RPI (A) is an ally of the BJP at the Centre, an alliance that has allowed Athawale to get a portfolio there. In October, in an attempt to improve his party’s presence in the newest State of the Union, he met with his cadre here and announced immediately afterwards that he had tied up with BJP and that seat-sharing talks were underway.
“We are holding discussions with State BJP election committee in-charge JP Nadda on seat sharing. We will not settle for less that 19-20 seats,” he had claimed then. Weeks passed, but there was no word from BJP. Later, much to the embarrassment of Athawale, the State BJP announced that it would ally with the little-known Yuva Telangana Party. Athawale looked like he had never imagined this would happen.
What went wrong? RPI (A) working president tells Express that the BJP had never shown any interest in allying with them. “Since we are with them (BJP) at the Centre, we expected to with them here in Telangana as well. In fact, we were willing to settle for 15 seats but they just brushed us aside. They said we did not have a strong cadre here,” he said.