NEW DELHI: Gearing up for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP on Tuesday appointed new chiefs in four states, including former Gurdaspur MP Sunil Jakhar in Punjab, kick-starting the organisational overhaul and signalling an impending Union Cabinet reshuffle.
Jakhar, 69, who joined the BJP in May 2022, replaced Ashwani Sharma as the Punjab BJP chief and will face the onerous task of leading the saffron party in 2024 and expanding BJP prospects beyond the current two Lok Sabha seats (Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur).
Union Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy will be the BJP chief in poll-bound Telangana, relieving popular Bandi Sanjay Kumar, whom PM Narendra Modi had singled out for generous praise in the last party national executive meet held in Delhi.
Kishan Reddy will now resign as minister, paving the way for a Cabinet reshuffle, with more ministers expected to join the BJP organisation ahead of the General Election next year. Springing a surprise in Andhra Pradesh, the BJP has named D Purandeswari, daughter of late CM NT Rama Rao and the sister-in-law of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, as the state chief. She has been relieved as BJP general secretary, a charge she assumed in 2020.
The reins of Jharkhand BJP have gone to state’s first CM and tribal stalwart Babulal Marandi, who had quit the BJP to form Jharkhand Vikas Morcha Prajatantrik in 2006. Following Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s persistence, Marandi merged his party with the BJP in 2020 and was made the state Leader of Opposition. He is expected to expand the BJP’s tribal base in the state.
In two other significant orders, BJP chief JP Nadda nominated former Andhra CM Kiran Reddy as a party national executive member and former Telangana Health Minister Etela Rajender as the chairman of the party’s Telangana election management committee. Of the six new appointments, four involve leaders who joined the BJP from other outfits Jakhar was Punjab Congress chief; Purandeswari MoS for HRD in Congress-led UPA regime, joined the BJP in 2014 to protest Andhra Pradesh’s bifurcation; Kiran Reddy was a former Andhra CM of Congress and Rajender was a TRS veteran until he was dropped from the K Chandrashekar Rao cabinet in May 2021.
Rajender joined the BJP in June 2021, soon after being sacked. As the BJP broke from convention (the party normally does not hand over major organisational roles to party hoppers), sources said states where it was experimenting were the ones where it had low electoral presence and massive expansion scope.
In Punjab, the BJP has only two of 13 Lok Sabha seats; in Telangana, it has four of 17. In Andhra, the BJP drew a blank in the 2019 LS polls, bearing the brunt of the TDP’s 2018 exit from the NDA.
Sources said Jakhar, with a rich political legacy of father Balram Jakhar who was Lok Sabha Speaker for nearly nine years, is seen as an acceptable face across all communities in Punjab, despite being a Hindu leader. Jakhar had in the last BJP national executive meeting openly batted for the need for a “healing touch for Punjab”, urging the ruling BJP to adopt an all-inclusive strategy for the border state, “which still bears the wounds of terrorism days”.
In Telangana, the BJP seeks to make inroads across castes with Etelas comprising over half the state’s electorate, Kappus (Bandi Sanjay’s segment) making up around 11 per cent and Reddys 5 per cent. Purandeswari’s entry, however, raises question marks on the TDP’s rumoured return to the NDA, considering her politics has been anti-Chandrababu.
In Telangana, ripples of Bandi Sanjay’s sacking are likely to be felt with sections already questioning the appointment of Rajender, an outsider, as the election management chief. “This will demoralise cadres,” said a leader close to Bandi, who, with his ground outreach and yatras, had even caught the PM’s imagination.
Sources, however, said he was unable to take all factions along. Some opposition leaders in Telangana said the latest appointments appeared to suit KCR-led BRS, which might return the favour by expanding in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region to help the BJP in 2024. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has already accused the BRS of being BJP’s B-team, a charge the BJP and the BRS have rubbished.