A slick smooth campaign that helped BJP coast to a win in Chevella

Urban voters in Telangana shift from BRS to BJP in Lok Sabha elections, impacting 17 constituencies. BJP's strategic campaign pays off.

The urban voters of Telangana who sided with the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in the Assembly elections appear to have deserted the party in the Lok Sabha elections. As the trends became available by evening, it appeared as if the urban voters disappeared for the party.

Out of the 39 seats won by BRS in Assembly elections, 17 constituencies have swung away from the party. In the three seats that have been impacted by this swing, the Bharatiya Janata Party has benefitted in Chevella, Malkajgiri and Secunderabad.

The BRS party that aspired to a national role and changed its name from TRS to BRS got humbled at the hustings. 

Chevella constituency which includes the Maheshwaram, Rajendranagar, Serilingampally and Chevella Assembly segments saw the BJP’s Konda Vishweshwar Reddy take a massive lead over the incumbent G. Ranjith Reddy who shifted his allegiance from the BRS to the Congress party. 

“We were affected by the Modi and Mandir wave. All Hindus, other castes and backward castes voted for the BJP. There was electioneering and a wave,” said a party activist on the losing side of the spectrum.

The BJP ran a slick election campaign where it could work out the logistics of ministers attending the small function of filing of nomination papers. If Piyush Goyal attended the filing of nomination papers of Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, his colleague Anurag Thakur made it a point to attend the event of filing of nomination papers of its debutante Hyderabad aspirant Madhavi Latha Kompella. 

Not just that, if the aspirant was to visit the Returning Officers office at 11 a.m. everything was coordinated to the minute. Playing a role behind the scenes was Sangita Reddy, wife of KVR and daughter or Apollo Hospital Group founder. On the day, the BJP candidate filed the nomination papers, Ms Reddy was ready at a makeshift tent. As soon as the papers were filed, Ms Reddy arranged the journalists to be inside the tent with the candidate and nobody else. Once that was done, she disappeared from the scene. This slick choreographed campaign with a PR firm delivering notes and even the manifesto for the constituency that set apart the BJP’s effort.