In a move that is seen in line with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s outreach to increase its influence in the southern states of India, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government on Wednesday nominated four prominent faces from South India, including athlete PT Usha and famous singer and composer Ilaiyaraaja, to the Rajya Sabha. The other two names included Veerendra Heggade, chief of the iconic Dharmasthala temple in Karnataka and screenwriter of blockbuster movies like “Baahubali” series, and “Bajrangi Bhaijaan” KV Vijayendra Prasad, who hails from Andhra Pradesh. The move is seen as a strategic outreach by the BJP to expand its foothold into states where it has failed to make a political impact.
While Usha hails from Kerala, Ilaiyaraaja belongs to the Dalit community in Tamil Nadu. The decision comes days after the ruling party at the Centre held its executive meet at Hyderabad in a bid to increase its presence in South India. So far, the BJP has failed to make inroads in any South Indian states barring Karnataka, and the region is being seen as key to the national party’s next phase of expansion.
Soon after their nominations, PM Modi took to Twitter to congratulate all the four for their ‘remarkable’ achievements in their respective fields. “The remarkable PT Usha Ji is an inspiration for every Indian. Her accomplishments in sports are widely known but equally commendable is her work to mentor budding athletes over the last several years. Congratulations to her on being nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
“The creative genius of Ilaiyaraaja Ji has enthralled people across generations. His works beautifully reflect many emotions. What is equally inspiring is his life journey — he rose from a humble background and achieved so much. Glad that he has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha,” Modi tweeted. For Heggade, PM Modi tweeted, “I have had the opportunity to pray at the Dharmasthala Temple and also witness the great work he is doing in health, education and culture. He will certainly enrich Parliamentary proceedings.”
After the BJP’s national executive meet at Hyderabad on July 2 and 3, the Telangana BJP unit has decided to organise massive outreach programmes, with only a year left for the state assembly elections. Ahead of the executive meeting, top BJP leaders, former chief ministers and union ministers travelled across 119 assembly seats in the state to take note of the grassroot level organisation and the implementation of PM Modi government’s central schemes. In the coming days, several Union Ministers will be travelling across the state to take stock of the party’s strength and weaknesses. Several union ministers like Jyotiraditya Scindia and Nirmala Sitharaman will be visiting separate clusters with 14 Lok Sabha constituencies divided into four clusters – Adilabad, Hyderabad, Mahahubnagar and Warangal. While heavy industries minister Mahendra Nath Pandey has been given charge of Mahbubnagar cluster, parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi will be in-charge for Hyderabad and fisheries minister Purshottam Khodabhai Rupala will be in-charge of the Adilabad cluster.
BJP has been eyeing to make inroads in Telangana for a while, with the first major push coming ahead of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Elections back in 2020. The party had fielded several heavyweights like Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, party national president JP Nadda, union minister Smriti Irani and BJP MP Tejaswi Surya for campaigning. It was during this time when BJP had first made the pitch for renaming Hyderabad to Bhagyanagar, when Yogi, at an election rally in the city had said, “If we win, we will turn Hyderabad into Bhagyanagar… Some people were asking me if Hyderabad can be renamed Bhagyanagar. I said, why not. I told them that we renamed Faizabad as Ayodhya and Allahabad as Prayagraj after BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh. Then why can’t Hyderabad be Bhagyanagar?” The pitch to rename Hyderabad grew stronger when PM Modi referred the city as Bhagyanagar in the recently-concluded executive meeting. PM Modi has, time and again, attacked Telangana Chief Minister KCR over dynastic politics in his recent visits to Hyderabad.