HYDERABAD: The BJP, which is raring to capture power in the next Assembly elections in the State in 2023, has rolled the dice by promoting its senior leader from Telangana, Gangapuram Kishan Reddy, an MP from Secunderabad, from the rank of Union Minister of State to Cabinet Minister in the Cabinet expansion carried out on Wednesday.
For Kishan Reddy, it is an unexpected windfall, because even though he was only a first-time MP, he was first made the Minister of State and now has been promoted to a Cabinet rank. The party appears to want to make him the face of Telangana BJP, as it moves forward to take on the TRS and the doughty Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
Union Minister’s task: To cut into Opposition’s vote bank
Kishan’s task is now cut out. As a position in the Cabinet would add to his persona, he would have to go about proselytising TRS supporters into BJP foot-soldiers, with the help of another dynamic BC leader Bandi Sanjay Kumar, who is heading the party State unit.
As the Telangana Congress now has a new leader in A Revanth Reddy, Kishan Reddy would have to sharpen his rapier both ways to cut into both the Congress and the TRS vote bank to turn the tables against KCR when the day of reckoning arrives. The BJP is already gathering momentum, having bagged the Dubbaka Assembly seat and made inroads into the GHMC, its electoral reverses in the MLC polls and Nagarjunasagar Assembly by-election notwithstanding.
Readiness by Reddy-ness
In fact, a Cabinet rank is almost equal to the rank of a Chief Minister, and the saffron party appears keen on Kishan Reddy taking on the TRS with redoubled vigour. In its eagerness to demolish the TRS monolith, the BJP has been carefully crafting its strategies. As part of this, the party is handpicking Reddy leaders as it feels they alone are capable of taking on the Velamas in Telangana.
Another instance of the BJP handpicking Reddy leaders in the State is the admission of former Congress minister DK Aruna and making her vice-president of the party. And now, it has infused new strength into the sinews of Kishan Reddy by giving him the Cabinet berth.