In Munugode by-poll, the bet is not on who will win, but the next defector

What is animatedly being debated more in the media in Telangana amidst the Munugode bypoll campaign is not who would win the elections, but who is going to defect to the other party.

Speculations are rife about probable defectors amid denials and reiterations of commitment and loyalty to current party. Nobody is able to guess who would leave next and who would come back. Except for the family members of bosses of political parties, every name has become fodder for the rumour mill.

This frenzied trend ahead of the November 3 polls concern the three main contending parties TRS, BJP and Congress, as after the bypoll was notified, a hunt began for vulnerable local leaders. Starting from village ward members to former MPs and MLAs, every leader worth his salt is in great demand. The competition became fierce when former TRS MP Dr. Bura Narsaiah Goud, a backward caste leader, joined the BJP.

Dr. Goud was a prize catch for BJP which upset the ruling TRS camp. Gouds (Toddy tappers) are numerically the largest community (17% share of votes) in Munugode. When byelections appeared certain, Dr. Goud, a successful Gastroenterologist, was also an aspirant for the TRS ticket for Munugode. But TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) favoured K Prabhakar Reddy, who was defeated in the 2018 election by the Congress nominee Rajagopal Reddy, now the BJP candidate. Infuriated, Dr. Goud quit the party to join BJP stating the BCs were side-lined in the party and he had been humiliated by KCR on many occasions.

Goud’s defection had electrified the BJP camp which was already on cloud nine following the joining of Kondaviswesara Reddy, also a former TRS Lok Sabha member in July, and Teenmar Mallanna, an activist-journalist earlier.

Media was agog with speculation that deputy speaker T Padmarao Goud as well as former MLC Karne Prabhar were also on BJP’s radar. This has given BJP an unexpected edge in the campaign and unnerved the TRS camp. Both later denied the news. BC leaders Kuna Srisailam Goud (former  Congress MLA) and T Virender Goud (TDP) are said to be the next targets of the BJP.

TRS counter

Now,  the TRS had to launch a counter-offensive to neutralise the ‘BC BJP effect’ and was successful in luring many Gouds. The first to return to TRS was former MLC Budida Bikshamaiah Goud followed by another noted Goud caste leader K Swamy Goud, former TRS MLC. Though Bikshamaiah Goud was elected to the united Andhra Assembly as a Congress candidate, he chose to join TRS in 2019. But in  2022 April he jumped over to BJP.

Swamy Goud, a leader of the government employees association once, was elected to the  Council as TRS nominee in 2014. He was also elected chairman of the house. He quit TRS as a bitter critic of KCR 2020 to join BJP.

Another Goud to defect to TRS  from Congress, hours after Dr. Bura’s news was broken, was Palle Ravi. Ravi’s wife is a Mandal Parishad member.

Later, Prof Sravan Dasoju, chief spokesperson of the party, too returned to TRS. Dasoju, a BC intellectual, had quit his academic career to join the Telangana movement and later the TRS. He was also a virulent critic of KCR and his family till the other day.

The latest to join TRS from the BJP camp was former Rajya Sabha MP Rapolu Ananda Bhaskar who jumped ship on Monday.

According to reports, BJP was trying to poach BRS MLAs Pilot Rohit Reddy, Rega Kantharao, Guvvala Balaraju, and Beeram Harshavardhan, following which Telangana police arrested three people. The BJP however dismissed it as fabircated reports.

All these TRS leaders left the party with the same grouse — humiliation, and marginalisation of BC leaders in TRS. Now, these leaders allege the same humiliating treatment in their respective parties ie Congress and BJP.

Also read: Telangana Munugode bypoll: As parties open money tap, voters seek ‘cut’

Though defections were rampant in united Andhra Pradesh between 2004 and 2014, the new state of Telangana could not break free from ayaram gayaram culture; in fact, the news state has become a synonym for defections.

Instead of heralding new political culture, the TRS used defection as a tool to obliterate opposition parties. Telangana defections have acquired such notoriety under the TRS regime that a student from Ramananda Theertha  Marathwada University, Nanded, Maharashtra did a PhD on the topic.

Kamal Kishore Pawar, from the Political Science Department, was awarded Ph.D. for his thesis, ‘Politics of Defections: A Case Study of Telangana’ in 2019.

Pawar in his study mapped the background, lure, and trajectory of defections and how they were shaping the politics of a new state which was achieved after protracted agitation with sacrifices.

In elections held in 2014, TRS led by KCR formed the government by winning 63 seats out of 119. Though it was a comfortable majority without a threat from any quarters, the chief minister encouraged defections from Congress which had 21 MLAs and TDP with 15. . By the end of the office term, thanks to defections, the strength of TRS rose to 90. The modus operandi was allowing the Congress and TDP legislature parties split and seek recognition as a separate group and later merge with the TRS legislature parties. The speaker remained silent all through.

The most curious case was Erraballi Dayakar Rao, the TDP LP leader, who petitioned the speaker to disqualify his colleagues who defected to TRS, but himself leading the next pack of defections.

The members of BSP as well as CPI also fell victim to the defection politics of TRS. Many of them were made ministers in the cabinet. The lure of power and pelf is so irresistible that the defections to TRS led to the disappearance of two major political parties ie the Telugu Desam Party and the YSR Congress from the state.

Why leaders love defection

Since TRS came to power riding on the wave of success of the Telangana movement, political leaders thought the party would remain in power for a long time and other parties had little future in the state.

“A party which gives an impression of stability and durability is bound to attract leaders from other parties that are losing ground. Another attraction is that joining a strong ruling party with a mass base has its own political, social, and financial incentives. So in Telangana TRS has become the destination of MLAs and MPs from other parties,” said Prof Karli Srinivasulu, an eminent political scientist and senior fellow at ICSSR, New Delhi.

This large-scale migration has its own downside. ”A section that got marginalized in the party because of a huge influx started feeling uncomfortable. Since there was no alternative earlier, outward migrations from the TRS were nil. When the BJP was spotted on the horizon, the marginalised TRS leaders began quitting the party and BJP became the major beneficiary of the trend,” Prof Srinivasulu said.

The poaching of leaders by TRS continued into its second term till 2020 even after TRS won the absolute majority in Assembly in 2018.

However, two by-elections, which gave the BJP a new lease of life, have put an end to TRS’ monopoly over defections. The Dubbaka byelection in 2020 turned the tide in BJP’s favor with the saffron party winning the election.  The party weaved magic by fielding Raghunandan Rao, a former TRS politburo member.

Also read: Telangana: Battle lines drawn for Munugode bypoll

Similarly, BJP won the Huzurabad byelection due to the popularity and sympathy factor of its candidate Eatala Rajender, a cabinet minister, who was sacked by KCR. These two byelections have transformed the BJP into an alternative to TRS and opened party gates wide open for anti-KCR forces.

BS Ramulu, a well-known writer, and former Chairman of the Telangana state Backward Castes Commission said BJP has become the new hope for BC leaders in Telangana. “It is a surprising trend that has begun with Eatala Rajender joining the party and winning the bypoll last year. What is curious is that the party is seen as a new destination for all those BC leaders who found little support in the other parties,” said Ramulu, also a former associate of chief minister KCR.

Against this backdrop, BJP state chief Sanjay Kumar Bandi claimed that 12 TRS MLAs were willing to join BJP while TRS was hopeful of a return of its former leaders from other parties as the new BRS party could offer greater opportunities for all.