Bandi Sanjay Spearheads Kapu Consolidation Move To Anchor BJP’s 2028 Power Bid
Sanjay was said to be attending a series of community meetings, at the latest of which another BJP MP and an MP from BRS were present.
Hyderabad: In an attempt to turn the Bharatiya Janata Party into a formidable force in 2028 polls and bid for power, Union minister of state for home Bandi Sanjay Kumar has been extensively reaching out to the Backward Classes communities, more importantly, his own Munnur Kapu group.
Sanjay was said to be attending a series of community meetings, at the latest of which another BJP MP and an MP from BRS were present. The meeting was organised by former bureaucrat T. Chandrasekhar Rao, president of the Andhra Pradesh unit of BRS who was in the news recently for meeting Jana Sena supremo and AP Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan.
Sources told Deccan Chronicle that several bureaucrats, some of them still in service, attended the meeting and suggested a multi-pronged strategy to pitch the community as a decisive electoral factor in Telangana. “First and foremost, the MHA for which you (Sanjay) are an MoS, should rectify the gross anomalies in the caste census conducted by the state government and the population census could be the opportunity,” former CBI joint director V. Lakshminaryana is said to have pointed out.
According to some participants, Telangana government officials had recorded people belonging to the Munnur Kapu caste as “Reddy” in several districts including Mahbubnagar during the recent caste survey. It could be an error, or a deliberate attempt, but the percentage of members of the Munnur Kapu community was shown to be very low in the state, they said, adding that the actual percentage would be much higher than what was recorded.
The second issue they dwelt upon was the consolidation of the community by bringing sub-sects together. In undivided Andhra Pradesh, the Kapu community was divided on regional basis into Toorpu Kapu (north coastal districts), Kapu (Godavari and Krishna delta), Balija (Rayalaseema) and Munnur Kapu (Telangana). “Post bifurcation, people belonging to the three regions of AP who have settled in Telangana, in particular in and around the capital city, should be integrated with the Munnur Kapus,” said a retired income-tax official.
There was a proposal to register as many as people of the community from AP as possible as voters in Telangana for the 2028 elections, and if need be shift their vote to AP where the state polls would be held six months later. As a goodwill gesture, sources said, it was decided to take up the construction of the Kapu Bhavan and Kalyanamandapam in the land allotted to the Munnur Kapu community by the BRS government; the prime land allotted to the Kapu community from Andhra region by then-Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao near Hitec City is caught in legal tangle. A senior police official is said to have suggested to Sanjay to focus on increasing the imprint of the community on social media, which was playing a crucial role in making or breaking leaders.
