HYDERABAD: The slogan of ‘self-respect’ given by Eatala Rajender had raised the curtains for an election that would go down in the history as the most expensive bypoll ever fought in terms of money and might. That slogan has manifested itself as the people’s verdict, giving a clear majority to BJP in the Huzurabad bypoll.
“The people had realised that if they accepted the cash offered to them and voted for TRS, their self-respect would have come under question. They didn’t believe in Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s false promises anymore,” BJP State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar told Express.According to AP Jithendar Reddy, in-charge of BJP’s campaign in Huzurabad, “people knew Rajender as a good man, and took it as an obligation to protect him and at the same time they had a compelling reason to send a strong message to the Chief Minister”.
The BJP cadre and Rajender’s team succeeded in busting every false claim and propaganda spread by the TRS leaders. Whether it was TRS’ failed missile test of ‘Dalit Bandhu’ pilot project or using the rising fuel costs to target the Centre, everything just boomeranged.“Dalits understood that Dalit Bandhu would have been a pilot project for another couple of years. When we dared the State government to exempt `41 as the State tax on petrol, the government had no answer,” Sanjay pointed out.
Anger against CM
BJP’s spokesperson Dr S Prakash Reddy sums up the verdict as the culmination of people’s anger against the Chief Minister, their loyalty to Rajender in his capacity as a leader and the organisational structure and functioning of BJP which made this happen.“Voters don’t think in a static mood. They look for an alternative, the way they did in GHMC elections, Dubbaka and Huzurabad bypolls,” he observed.
Ridiculing the allegations of TRS leaders that Congress and BJP colluded to defeat the pink party, Reddy questioned the double standards of the ruling party in inducting Koushik Reddy into the TRS to gain over 61,000 votes, which he got in 2018 elections as the Congress’ candidate and now wondering about the swing votes of Congress. The takeaway from this election verdict, which has been an indisputable fact agreed by all, is that the people of Huzurabad voted for a strong candidate.
Though Sanjay declared that the bypoll set the tone for change in the State’s politics, BJP’s insiders wonder whether the saffron brigade can field strong candidates against the TRS in all future elections and whether they would continue to fight with as much intensity in the run-up to 2023 elections without succumbing to politics of compromise.