The 24-hours `Rythu Hameela Sadhana Deeksha’ held by BJP MPs and MLAs, led by its legislature party leader Aleti Maheshwari Reddy at Dharna Chowk, Hyderabad from 11 am onwards on Monday, has exposed intense factionalism prevailed in Telangana BJP.
Though BJP has won 8 Lok Sabha and 8 Assembly seats in the state, most of them are not seen actively in party programmes. Union Ministers G Kishan Reddy, Bandi Sanjay Kumar and OBC Morcha national president Dr K Lakshman, who have been dominating party affairs in the state are intentionally avoiding them from taking part in party programs.
As most of these MPs and MLAs are originally rooted in some other political parties and have clout among people, original BJP leaders are said to be afraid encouraging such mass leaders will be suicidal for their own political fortunes. As original BJP leaders are mostly confined to media events and hall meetings, they are threatened with insecurity with the rise of mass leaders like DK Aruna, Etela Rajender and Maheshwar Reddy in the party.
The Deeksha was held questioning Revanth Reddy government’s failures in meeting his promises to the farmers, mainly with regard to loan waiver. They have demanded loan waiver upto Rs 2 lakh to all farmers. Questioning the claims of the government in this regard, they have demanded to publish the names of farmers they waived loans on the website.
While key leaders of the party, Kishan Reddy, Bandi Sanjy and Dr K Lakshman were absent on the first day of this program, even among eight MLAs, three were absent. They are, Adilabad MLA Payal Shankar, Kamareddy MLA Katipelli Venkataramana Reddy and Goshamahal MLA Raja Singh.
The party’s MPs Etala Rajender, DK. Aruna, Raghunandan Rao, Dharmapuri Arvind, Gaddem Nagesh, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, MLAs Rama Rao Patel, Dhan Pal Suryanarayana Gupta and Palwai Harish Babu participated.
BJP legislative party leader Aleti Maheshwar Reddy alleged that more than a thousand farmers committed suicide after Congress came to power. He recalled that Revanth Reddy promised to waive loans of 70 lakh farmers with a single signature to the extent of Rs 40,000 crore. He lamented 22 lakh farmers were cheated.
He also said that after the cabinet meeting Chief Minister announced waiver of Rs 31,000 crore loans, but only Rs 26,000 crore released in the budget and finally only Rs.17,933 crores were spent on loan waivers.
MP Etala Rajender challenged Revanth Reddy to put the amount of loan waiver in the public domain. He lamented that nothing was implemented except one free bus out of the six guarantees.