HYDERABAD: HAVING won the Dubbaka bypoll, the BJP would now take a more aggressive stance in the State with an eye not only on the forthcoming Corporation elections, but also the 2023 Assembly polls.A confident BJP president Bandi Sanjay averred: “We have laid the foundation for our future victories in Dubbaka. We will hoist the saffron flag atop Golconda Fort in 2023.” The immediate targets of the BJP leaders are winning the GHMC polls and retaining the Hyderabad MLC seat. The party would also focus on Warangal and Khammam Municipal Corporations. In the long run, it would strive to emerge victorious in the Assembly elections in 2023.
By winning the Dubbaka seat, the BJP has sent a strong message to the voters, that it has emerged as an alternative to the ruling TRS party. Its objective was to eliminate the Congress and win more Lok Sabha seats in the next polls.
The saffron party was able to snatch the vote banks of both the TRS and the Congress in Dubbaka. The BJP candidate M Raghunandan Rao had only gotten 22,595 votes in the 2018 general elections, which had pushed him to the third place. Now, the same leader has bagged 63,352 votes, an improvement from 9.82 per cent to 38.47 per cent votes. In 2014, he had received just 15,131 votes — a mere 9.82 per cent of the total votes polled.
Interestingly, this is the first ever victory for the party in Telangana after an aggressive Bandi Sanjay took the reins of the State BJP from K Laxman. Further, the BJP has also dropped leaders with RSS background from its national executive and has made former Minister DK Aruna, a leader from strong Reddy community, as its vice-president. These measures have helped the lotus bloom in the State.
The victory of the BJP is significant, as it has bagged an Assembly seat in north-Telangana, which was once known for its strong base in the Statehood movement. It appears that the Telangana sentiment attached to the TRS has faded out this bypoll.