What will happen if Etala Rajender joined the BJP as expected? Nothing. Heavens will not fall. It will help the ruling party, the TRS and the chief minister, K. Chandrasekhara Rao (KCR). Rajender, in turn, may get ‘Y’ category security like Suvendu Adhikari in Bengal and a BJP ticket and funds to fight by-election for Huzurabad seat if he vacates. Overall, it would be advantage KCR.
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Whatever the goodwill and sympathy Etala had gained after being sacked from the Cabinet has almost vanished. He will probably go alone to the BJP barring Ravinder Reddy, former MLA. No other MLA would follow him. Nobody from his community would risk joining him.
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By deciding to join the BJP, Rajender has abandoned everything he had amassed so far. His contacts and work in the extremist party, his following in the TRS would not be there with him anymore. The leftists would not walk into the BJP and the friends and well wishers in the TRS would not be able to cross floor with him. Not only because they are comfortable with the TRS, they will be strangers in the BJP if they join the saffron party along with him. Why should anyone take a risk of leaving the ruling party to join an opposition party whose future is uncertain? Rajender met many leaders before taking a decision. But he did not meet former minister Dr. Nagam Janardhana Reddy who has been repenting for his decision to join the BJP. He would have told Rajender how the old guards in the BJP would treat a new comers and what kind of relationship would be there with the RSS leaders.
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Rajender was not prepared to wage a prolonged fight against TRS. He had no stomach for a new party. He has the example of former minister Devender Gowd before him. It is very difficult to run and sustain a political party for more than two years before the next elections. He was keen on being comfortable with an established party which is in power at the centre. Those who thought he would create history by fighting KCR are a disappointed lot.
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Whether Rajender would quit from Assembly and cause a by-election and win such a bypoll is a different matter. It is not easy to repeat Dubbaka specially in the light of the BJP’s performance in Nagarjuna Sagar by-election. As far as the people of Telangana are concerned, the fight is over. Rajender would be part of the saffron party headed by Bandi Sanjay, his junior by all means. There would be no erosion in the TRS. His decision to opt for the BJP rather than the Congress is also dubious. Today, the Congress has more vote-bank in Telangana than the BJP. The problem is only with the leaders of the good old party. Once that problem is resolved, the party will be back into the fight. The Etala story which began on a promising note has almost ended abruptly without contributing much to the political history of Telangana.
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