BJP's Telangana Tussle: Why The Sanjay–Rajender Rift Runs Deeper Than It Seems

Two senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Telangana leaders, former state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar and Malkajgiri MP Eatala Rajender, were recently involved in a war of words.

Addressing a gathering at Huzurabad in Karimnagar, Sanjay said that this was the only place where there were factions in the party. He further accused them of working for his defeat in the Lok Sabha polls and asked if such people should be given tickets in local body polls. The remark was seen as directed towards Rajender, as Huzurabad is his Assembly constituency.

Rajender, a veteran leader who joined the BJP a few years back from the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), responded saying that he would go to Huzurabad and see who can stop his workers from getting tickets.

Cold war now out in the open

The clash had been simmering for a while. Both leaders believe the other to be responsible for their situation today, say analysts.

While Sanjay thinks that it is Rajender who was behind his removal as state president just before the Assembly elections in 2023, the latter feels that it was because of Sanjay that he lost out on the post of state president to Ramchander Rao.

Bandi Sanjay: The rise and fall

While the BJP has had MLAs and MPs from Telangana multiple times, the party was never a force to reckon with beyond a few pockets in and around the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

That changed with the coming of Sanjay, a charismatic leader from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). His fiery speeches, padayatras and Hindu Ekta rallies made him extremely popular, especially amongst the youth. The BJP became a household name in the state.

“Though the BJP is known to stress on organisation and cadre, the party needed a face that people could connect with. Sanjay filled that void. It is similar to the role played by B. S. Yediyurappa or K. Surendran,” said a leader who had closely worked with Sanjay during his election campaigns.

Sangh in the blood; first non-Hyderabadi to head the party in a long time

Sanjay became state president in 2020, a year after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when the party made history by winning four seats from the state.

For the BJP, his elevation was a game changer as the post, whenever held by leaders from the Telangana region, was in the hands of those hailing from the capital.

Only once did a leader from Karimnagar hold the position and that was Ch. Vidyasagar Rao (who later served as the Governor of Maharashtra) in 1998–99.

Speaking with this writer about Sanjay, a senior journalist based in Hyderabad said, “He is entirely a product of the Sangh. He attended shakhas, became a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), and then a corporator in his native Karimnagar. Extremely devoted to the Hindu cause, he visits the Bhagyalakshmi temple near Charminar before any big programme. The gesture is symbolic, but means a lot when it comes to arousing Hindutva consciousness amongst people.”

Darling of the youth but could not take people along

Sanjay’s vocal Hindutva worked well to aid his rise and establish his political presence. It got him a huge fan following. He was seen as the de facto opposition leader in the state even though the Congress had more MLAs and leaders who had been in power for decades.

The problem with his style of working, said multiple people who spoke with this writer, was that these supporters used to follow only Sanjay.

“His growth was not necessarily the growth of the party,” said the journalist.

Explaining the difference with the situation earlier, he said, “It was never a particular leader’s followers. It was always the BJP that was at the centre. Sanjay allegedly started ignoring and sidelining senior leaders and their followers. That led to a feeling of resentment against him, even though the party grew in visibility during his tenure.”

Eatala Rajender’s journey: From left to right

Coming from a completely opposite background is Rajender. His political journey began as a leader of the CPI (ML) affiliated Progressive Democratic Students Union during his time at Osmania University. Some years later, he started a poultry business.

In 2003, he joined the BRS (then called the Telangana Rashtra Samithi), which was formed to demand a separate state. While based in Shamirpet (towards the northern end of the city, abutting the Outer Ring Road), he used to contest from Kamalapur, where he hailed from. Post delimitation, the constituency was merged with Huzurabad.

After the formation of Telangana in 2014, he became a powerful member of K. Chandrashekar Rao’s (KCR) cabinet, holding portfolios like finance and health. The two had a fallout in 2021, and Rajender was dropped from the cabinet. He was accused of corruption and land grabbing.

While many theories ruled the roost during that time, one was that Rajender was removed in order to clear the way for KCR’s son K. T. Rama Rao (KTR) to take over the party and the chief minister’s chair after him.

Soon after joining the BJP, he defended his seat by winning the bypoll conducted in November. This was his seventh victory, and so when he lost for the first time in the 2023 Assembly elections, fingers were naturally pointed towards Sanjay.

Party has tried to resolve the clash but it has not been successful

Sanjay was soon rehabilitated at the centre during the next cabinet reshuffle. He was made Minister of State for Home Affairs and a national secretary of the party.

Rajender was selected as the chairman of the party’s campaign committee for the Lok Sabha polls. While he awaits a bigger post, it is not as if he has been completely ignored. Just a few months back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met him with his entire family.

Why there is no easy solution

The party is in a bind. Having followed a strategy of wooing Backward Caste (BCs) to come to power, the BJP risks losing out on votes if it favours one over the other as both are mass leaders and belong to numerically strong Backward Caste (BC) groups, Munnuru Kapu (Sanjay) and Mudiraj (Rajender).

Additionally, Rajender is also believed to enjoy the backing of the Reddys, as his wife, Jamuna, belongs to that community.

“Unlike the usual practice of being named after the father, their children use ‘Reddy’ as part of their names,” said the journalist, throwing light on a lesser known facet of Rajender’s life.

Adding another layer to the issue is they share the same political turf, Karimnagar.

“Sanjay, it is alleged, does not want any other leader to grow in his backyard. He sees Rajender as a competitor, not just in the district but also as somebody who can lay claim to the post of chief minister in future.”

Rajender, however unhappy he might be with the situation, has thus nowhere else to go.

While he cannot return to the BRS, he does not have much of a scope in the Congress as that party has a long list of claimants for the chief minister’s chair.

Has Rajender disappointed the BJP?

While allegations of Sanjay seeking to undermine him float around, there are also murmurs that the party high command expected more from Rajender.

“The BJP thought that he would be able to bring a good number of MLAs from the TRS along with him. The party reposed immense faith in him and even made him the chief of a ‘joinings committee’ that would look after the entry of new leaders. But that did not happen,” said the journalist.

At the same time, the party knows that if there is anyone who has the ability to work across party lines, it is him.

A supporter of Rajender said, “We would be happy if he is made a minister at the centre or given a position like Working President in the party (akin to what the Congress has in the state).”

The insider versus outsider dilemma

Unlike Sanjay, who is from the RSS, Rajender is an ideological outsider.

Asked if that is impacting the leadership’s decisions with regards to his position, a BJP leader from Malkajgiri said, “If that is the case, the party better change tack as it is not a very strong argument. Of all the MPs, except for Kishan Reddy, everyone else is an outsider. To take a few names, Arvind Dharmapuri’s father was the chief of the Congress party in the state, and Raghunandan Rao is from the BRS. We could not have fielded better candidates than them in those seats.

“And it is not as if outsiders have not been trusted by the party. In Assam we have Himanta Biswa Sarma (formerly with the Congress) as the chief minister and Suvendu Adhikari (formerly with the Trinamool Congress) as the leader of opposition. Today, they are the faces of the BJP in their respective states.”

Increase the size of the pie, you will have more to distribute later

While there has been a lull since then, and neither of the leaders have made any more statements against each other, it is in the party’s interest to resolve the matter at the earliest.

One solution, according to analysts, is to expand the party’s presence in the state and put their skills to good use.

The party today lacks strength in southern and eastern Telangana. All its MLAs and MPs, with the exception of D. K. Aruna from Mahabubnagar (who won by a narrow margin), are from the Hyderabad region or northern Telangana (undivided districts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Medak, and Karimnagar).

The high margin of loss in seats like Nalgonda (559,905), Khammam (648,293), and Mahbubabad (502,330) shows the party’s situation in those regions. In the latter two, it finished third behind the BRS.

In the Assembly elections held about six months before the Lok Sabha polls, it finished second in one seat each in southern and eastern Telangana, Kalwakurthy (in the undivided Mahabubnagar district) and Warangal East.

This was one of the reasons, apart from the dip in cadre morale after the removal of Sanjay as state president, that the BJP could not capitalise on the opportunity to come to power in Telangana in 2023.

The Congress (which was considered out of the race earlier) has a dedicated cadre and well-known leaders in every part of the state. They thus became the natural replacement for a weakening BRS and the BJP could not win more than 8 seats.

This is where somebody like Rajender could be useful to the party. He is a pan-state face, known to everyone. With Sanjay at the centre and occupied with national party duties, he may not be able to devote the same level of attention to Telangana politics as before.

Rajender, who currently does not have other responsibilities, could thus be a good choice to build the party organisation in these areas along with a team of other BJP leaders and local representatives.

The next elections are a few years away (end of 2028), but work on the ground has to start well in advance so that these places have a good party machinery by then.