Long before any results emerged today from the counting of ballot papers in the Hyderabad municipal election, leaders of the BJP started posting congratulatory tweets.
The celebrations may have been premature but the BJP has indeed made gains in Hyderabad.
The party has managed to establish itself firmly in the Opposition seat, as the party challenging the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and emerging as a big force, an alternative to the ruling party.
If not now, at least in 2023, the BJP can hope to ride on the anti-incumbency of six years of TRS rule. The party can be seen as a viable alternative to the TRS.
The Congress did not put up a spirited fight. Contrast it with the BJP, which flew in every top leader for its campaign. Not a single Congress leader visited Telangana to push the party’s chances or talk on its behalf even as a serious contender.
A top leader told NDTV that the worry was that the original TDP vote in Hyderabad seem to have shifted to the BJP.
The BJP cadre is also enthused with the party leadership sending all signals that they consider Telangana important for their plans.
That is why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s phone call to his party’s Bandi Sanjay, a corporator who rose to be MP and then state chief, after the elections, is significant. That was a morale-boosting call, congratulating the state BJP on good work done and reassuring them that the central leadership will go all-out to back the state unit. It was once again a signal that the BJP is taking Telangana seriously.
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