Telangana: Owaisi-Yogi playing a fixed match to raise communal pitch ahead of polls

As far as the ground situation is concerned, the Congress is looking at a party that is sure of itself, marching ahead to get ahead of the ruling TRS when the votes are counted. But the ongoing battle is not without the plots and subplots of the players in the fray, including the BJP.

On paper, the BJP is just a bystander in the Telangana assembly elections, just like it is largely across South India barring Karnataka. But for the BJP in any election, it is the Congress that it wants to target and no route is to be unexplored, even the indirect ones. In its objective, the BJP is doing two things: at the outset the BJP is trying to target the anti-establishment vote in Telangana and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah blasted KCR and his family rule in a bid to tap into the anti-incumbency sentiments.

The duo as also the local unit of the BJP know that it is nowhere a political force in Telangana that it can come to power on its own. As the BJP can win a few seats if it is aligned with a local regional party, which it has not done in this election. In the outgoing assembly it had five seats and it will be a difficult ask for it to retain.

But, going by the signal emanating from the ground, the BJP will find it tough to retain the number it has, though its local leaders would like the people to believe that the BJP will emerge as a king maker in a hung Telangana assembly on December 11 when votes are counted. However, even the BJP supporters have not put much faith in this scenario and hence would be happier if the party could inflict wounds on the Congress even if the BJP did not win any seats of its own.

Which is why the strong anti-TRS and anti-Telangana government statements and attacks from the BJP top guns and leaders. If Modi castigated the TRS for one family rule and gigantic corruption, Amit Shah continued in the same vein.

The second thing that the Modi-Shah combine is doing with deployment of the likes of Yogi Adityanath in Telangana campaign is much more futuristic with 2019 in mind. BJP president Amit Shah and other leaders try to instigate, engage and embroil AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi into heated exchanges that end up raising communal tempers. Owaisi himself does not fail and obliges the saffron brigade by his equal and forceful but opposite reactions to the statements coming out of the Sangh parivar leaders.

This is the larger game that the BJP is playing, knowing full well that it is its strong pro-Hindu sentiments expressed in a language that could incite communal disharmony which will fetch its votes in the 2019 general elections.

“It is no surprise that the BJP is using Owaisi to alter the course of the discourse in the assembly elections keeping an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” said Prof C Ramachandraiah of Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS).

It is nothing but a fixed match between the BJP and AIMIM, he said, reflecting the views shared by the intelligentsia in Hyderabad. The thinking that is behind this fixed match appears to be that it will eventually benefit the TRS, which was and is friendly with the BJP at the national level, protestations to otherwise notwithstanding past events would bear it out.

Now, the BJP has planted Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to do his bit for the party by whipping up Hindutva sentiments by attacking Owaisi and his politics.

“If BJP forms the government in Telangana, I can tell you that Owaisi will have to run away just like Nizam was compelled to run away from Hyderabad. BJP will give security to all but will not allow those who spread anarchy,” Yogi said in one of the rallies in Telangana. Owaisi’s party is strong in and around Hyderabad which together has 24 assembly seats. Last time AIMIM had won seven seats and is expected to retain the seven and pick up an odd seat here or there in the vicinity.

The ruling TRS has an understanding with the AIMIM.

The strategy of AIMIM, explained a student leader from Hyderabad, Hanmanth Raw, is to quietly spread the word among the minority voters to vote for TRS wherever the minority community candidate is not strong. For sure, the AIMIM will be working to strengthen the chances of TRS and try to wean away the minority votes from the Congress.

This, though, may not work in Telangana anymore as the Congress barb of AIMIM being the C team of the BJP and that it was playing a “fixed match” with the BJP raising communal tensions was gaining ground with each passing day.

“The elections will show the decreasing hold of AIMIM over muslim votes,” said the student leader. However, this was contested by a political analyst and freelance journalist Charya who said that even among the minorities, a sizeable section would be voting for the BJP.

Some analysts point out that the BJP may be slowly increasing its vote share, even if very marginally, in the Telangana assembly polls but this increase may not win it seats.

What all this adds up to is that the Congress will take a hit if it ignores these signals from the ground, said a youth Congress leader who did not want to be identified.

There is also some rumbling on the ground that the alliance with Telugu Desam party and how Chandrababu Naidu took charge of the campaign might damage the Congress a little, given that he is seen as an “anti-Telangana” man for opposing the creation of Telangana.

Still, no one in Telangana or in Andhra Pradesh, believes that KCR and TRS are home and dry. It is the Prajakutami comprising Congress, TDP, Telangana Jana Samithi and CPI that has a slight edge. But the contest is very, very keen and it is the foolish or the very brave who will make a definitive prediction.

The Congress is for sure in with a chance, but will have to guard themselves against any machinations of the ruling TRS and the crafty chief minister and this is the verdict of the man on the street.