VIJAYAWADA: Citing the ‘irreparable loss’ that the BJP has suffered in the State due to its electoral alliance in the past, leaders from the State unit have urged the national leadership to allot maximum seats to those who have served the saffron party for a long period instead of those who favour the TDP.
Several party leaders, including State BJP vice-presidents, have shot off a letter to the party’s national president JP Nadda, resenting the manner in which candidates are being selected for the upcoming elections.
According to sources, the State unit is upset that leaders like Garapati Sitaramanjaneya Chowdary (Tapana Chowdary), GVL Narasimha Rao and S Vishnuvardhan Reddy are unlikely to be nominated for either the Assembly or Lok Sabha seats.
Instead, former MPs CM Ramesh and Y Satyanarayana Chowdary (Sujana Chowdary) as well as former State minister C Adinarayana Reddy have been named as the front-runners for contesting the polls. All of them had joined the BJP after the TDP lost the 2019 elections.
While Tapana Chowdary is facing a stiff competition from Sujana Chowdary to contest the Eluru MP seat, Vishnuvardhan Reddy has tried for the Hindupur Lok Sabha or Kadiri Assembly seat. However, he is unlikely to get a ticket.
With the yellow party likely to contest the Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha seat, GVL Narasimha Rao has been left disappointed.
‘BJP has been given seats where party is weak’
Sources said the State unit is also unhappy with the allocation of Vijayawada West segment, where the BJP does not have a strong leader. They pointed out that JSP leader Potina Venkata Mahesh aspired to contest the seat, but he was denied the ticket. Instead, the constituency was allocated to the BJP, sources added.
Emphasising that they are not against the alliance with the TDP and JSP, the leaders, including Vishnuvardhan Reddy, said they cannot support the candidates who are not ‘trustworthy’.
They opined that neither the TDP nor the BJP have a chance to win the six Parliamentary and 10 Assembly constituencies allotted to saffron party. Claiming that the BJP has been given seats where it is weak, the leaders said, “This is nothing but the TDP backstabbing the BJP.”
They said although the State unit shared a list of winning candidates, who have worked in line with the BJP’s ideology, with the national leadership, the same was not considered.
Further, the State BJP leaders alleged that the candidates chosen on behalf of the saffron party are suspected to be hand in glove with the TDP. “The TDP has accepted to forge an alliance with the BJP with a hidden agenda. It has shifted leaders to the BJP so that its cadre can be satisfied and the BJP’s presence in the State can be weakened in the State,” they claimed.
Stating that they have conveyed the view of the partymen at the grass-root level to the high command, the leaders said, “The concerns flagged should be considered as the voice of scores of Karyakartas in the State.”
In another letter, the Visakhapatnam district unit of the BJP has urged Nadda to take steps to ensure that the party contests the Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha seat like it did in 2019 to uphold the interests of the leaders in the region.
They further requested Nadda to “either field a BJP candidate for the Visakhapatnam MP seat or an alliance partner who will contest the segment on the Lotus symbol.”