Nearly a week before the Munugode byelection, the Telangana Police raided a farmhouse outside of Hyderabad. They recovered a sizable sum of money that was "meant to be offered to four MLAs of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to resign their party," according to officials. The saffron party has referred to the alleged poaching attempts as a political drama written by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. In contrast, TRS officials have asserted that one of the four MLAs was promised Rs 100 crore and the others Rs 50 crore apiece by the "BJP operatives."
Why is Telangana witnessing a fierce fight between the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)? The answer lies in the saffron party's ambition to increase its footprints in the Southern part of the country.
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, and the union territory of Puducherry, which together make up 24.3% of the Lower House's membership, each send 132 lawmakers to the Lok Sabha. The BJP is well-established in Karnataka and, more recently, Puducherry, but it hasn't yet been able to move past a point of viability in the other southern states.
The BJP is mostly focused on Telangana out of these five states and one union territory. In Andhra Pradesh, Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP has developed into a friend-in-need; in Tamil Nadu, its prospects are linked to partner AIADMK; and in Kerala, the BJP has been unable to make any progress in a Left against Congress binary war.
The recent developments in the state also align with this strategy. The party has launched a number of initiatives to increase its visibility ahead of the elections next year, including its national executive meeting in July and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah taking time off to attend state-related events.
The party organization in Telangana is so buoyant that state officials claim they are ready for elections even if, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), decides to promote their agenda of early election as they did in the previous term. In June, Modi met 46 corporators of the BJP's Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation in New Delhi, after which the Prime Minister tweeted that the BJP would work towards "ending dynastic misrule in Telangana".
But on Wednesday, TRS fired a fresh salvo at the BJP accusing it of horse-trading. The long-term impact of this is yet to be seen but what lies ahead is an interesting battle for power in the Southern state.
