Analysis: In Avoiding Repeat Of Telangana, BJP Pays Price In Tamil Nadu
Word on the street is that the BJP made a monumental blunder by allowing its alliance with the AIADMK to crash in Tamil Nadu. All it would have taken to salvage it was to replace the state BJP chief. Popular perception is that the BJP is too smart to make tactical errors that will prove politically costly, but that this time, ego got the better of it.Both were carefully chosen in terms of caste and their ability to challenge and upset the way caste equations have been politically stacked up in Telangana and Tamil Nadu. The fact is the ruling party did not want to repeat the mistake it made in Telangana. Bandi Sanjay as BJP chief in Telangana had been doing just what K Annamalai is doing now as party chief in Tamil Nadu - creating a positive buzz, going on padyatras, and dictating the political headlines and the narrative in a state where its political presence does not justify the kind of dust it has managed to kick up.Both managed to get under the skin of the state's ruling party,...