Bandi vs Etala War Comes to Fore After Poll Outcome

Hyderabad:The simmering cold war in Telangana BJP burst into the open again on Saturday, after the gram panchayat elections in some districts. Senior leaders are at loggerheads, and the battlefield this time is Kamalapur.

As results came in, Union minister of state Bandi Sanjay Kumar claimed that the candidate backed by BJP MP Etala Rajendar – Ryakam Sampath – lost the sarpanch election, while Ryakam Srinivas, projected as the “BJP-supported” candidate, won by 90 votes.

He underlined that Srinivas was serving as the party’s mandal president, using the organisational post as political certification.

Sampat, Rajendar’s candidate. is the paternal uncle of Srinivas.

The Bandi Sanjay team alleged that Rajendar had put his own candidates in 20 villages in Kamalapur mandal, many of them not supported by the party.

Sanjay in his social media group declared that the “Etala-backed candidate lost and the BJP-supported candidate won,” virtually reducing the gram panchayat result into a personal scorecard between the two heavyweights.

This open one-upmanship has raised a direct question to BJP state president N Ramchander Rao: How did the Karimnagar contests proceed under the shadow of such a visible rift between two senior stalwarts?

A senior party leader, who wished not to be named, remarked that the party “cannot dream of capturing Telangana while its top brass is busy settling internal scores in village elections instead of fighting the real opponent. If this ego battle continues, people will see the BJP not as an alternative to the BRS or the Congress, but as a house divided, unfit to govern.”

Even during recent Jubilee Hills bypoll, the party had not worked as a team and its candidate lost his deposit. Party Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind largely stayed away from the campaigning, triggering questions within the party about his absence. To media queries, he reportedly argued that his aggressive social media outreach in support of BJP candidate Lankala Deepak Reddy was more impactful than physically touring the constituency.

Arvind asserted that his online campaign and statements were reaching voters more strongly than leaders “stationed” in Jubilee Hills and even asked the state leadership not to complain to the high command about his non‑participation, insisting there were enough local seniors and MPs to handle field campaigning.

These fresh hostilities come on the back of earlier flashpoints between the same leaders and at a time when reports from Delhi suggest the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unhappy with the lacklustre performance and poor public engagement of several Telangana MPs.