The civic body polls in Telangana saw an unlikely alliance: of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress. In a bid to defeat the state’s ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the two national parties tied up for information technology (IT) hub Manikonda municipality after the results and walked away with the posts of chairperson and vice-chairperson on Tuesday.
However, analysts say the two parties have been working in concert for a long time.
Of the total 20 wards in Manikonda municipality, the Congress bagged eight, BJP six and TRS picked up five. One went to an independent candidate.
Sources claimed the parties tried a similar understanding in Makthal but it didn’t materialise.
“Makthal falls under my constituency and I can assure you that there wasn’t any such understanding. The BJP had a convenient majority. What happened in other areas is a very local and internal adjustment. The BJP’s attempt is to finish the Congress in the state,” said Telangana BJP leader Jithender Reddy, who recently shifted sides from the TRS.
Though leaders from both the BJP and Congress are calling it a very “local arrangement” and rejecting any possibility of an alliance at any time, analysts point out that the parties have often worked together on the ground.
“The Congress is lacking that zeal to fight the BJP out. In Telangana, the TRS is the real rival to both. So in an attempt to pull down the TRS, they must have reached this arrangement. This is not new. In places such as Nizamabad where the BJP had greater numbers, the Congress must have helped it on the ground after an understanding,” said political analyst Telakapalli Ravi said.
However, members of the two parties say that the “arrangement” was done for the best interests of the people in the area and with little interference from the state leaderships.
“The local leaders have a better understanding of the issues there, so the party left it to them to decide the next move. The leaders felt that working with the Congress would be good for the people of the municipality, and they went ahead with it. This does not mean that the BJP in any way would be open to working with the Congress in the future,” BJP leader N Ramchander Rao told News18.
Lashing out at the two national parties, municipal administration and information technology minister KT Rama Rao (KTR) called this an “unholy alliance” and said that both the BJP and Congress always indulge in impractical politics and have no serious intention to plan for the welfare of the people.
The ruling TRS, once again, got a thumping victory in the polls, winning 112 of the state’s 120 municipalities and nine municipal corporations.
“Although both parties (BJP and Congress) align with each other at ground level and work for each other, they will never have an open alliance. In a bid to defeat state rivals, they’ve been secretly working together in different states such as Kerala, but will never agree to do this openly,” said Ravi.
Telangana Congress leaders reached out to by News18 were unavailable for comment.
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