Rarely does a big political player like the BJP receive fewer mentions as a state shifts gears into the final phase of electioneering.

The main challenger to the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) until a few months ago, the BJP is hardly called that anymore.

Until the Karnataka elections in May, it was the BJP that made all the right noises in neighbouring Karnataka. Then a switch flipped.

The BJP replaced its highly vocal and aggressive Telangana unit president Bandi Sanjay Kumar with softliner Union tourism minister G. Kishan Reddy in July.

What followed was a series of cataclysmic events that saw the BJP’s fortunes rapidly ebbing with high-voltage exits.

Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, who was among those who welcomed Kishan Reddy when the latter assumed charge as the BJP state president, quit the party. He then returned to the Congress, ending his 15-month sojourn in the BJP.

The next one to leave and join the Congress was national executive committee member and head of state BJP manifesto committee Gaddam Vivekanand.

Actor and BJP national executive member Vijayashanti followed suit, again to the Congress.

Just when the BJP thought it managed to plug the leaks, influential trade union leader Ashwatthama Reddy quit last week over the denial of an Assembly ticket. He is a close associate of Etela Rajender, who is giving a tough fight to chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, better known by his acronym KCR, in Gajwel constituency, some 60km from here.

Several local BJP leaders also walked out along with thousands of their active supporters, mainly to the Congress.

Some analysts say that the BJP’s withdrawal into a shell of sorts is part of an understanding with the BRS that in the event of a hung Lok Sabha in 2024 Prime Minister Narendra Modi could count on its support. But then, leaders of both parties didn’t pull punches against each other and KCR even had to seek a safety net in the Kamareddy constituency, indicating that they are still foes.

Former BJP national general secretary and in-charge in Madhya Pradesh, P Muralidhar Rao, rubbished the talks of any secret understanding.

“We don’t contest for fun. We are in this to win, which we will,” Rao told The Telegraph.

He insisted the BJP was the only challenger to the BRS. “After the Karnataka victory, they (Congress) got access to big bags and suitcases (money). So it is money that is talking (about the Congress’s popularity) and not people’s support.”

“The people want the BJP this time,” he said when told his party won just one seat in 2018. While the Congress won 19, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, as BRS was then known, had won 88 seats.

The BJP draws its confidence from the subsequent successes. While it won four of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, it won two Assembly bypolls in 2020 and won 48 of 150 seats in the Greater Hyderabad Metropolitan Council election in December 2020.

But state Congress president A. Revanth Reddy was confident that his party would win 80-85 of the 119 seats. The feisty leader even announced that the new government would be sworn in at 12 noon on December 9.

E. Venkatesu, professor of political science at the University of Hyderabad, is among those who believe that replacing its firebrand president has hit the BJP hard. “The BJP was the main challenger until they changed the president,” he told this newspaper.

“Bandi Sanjay was an aggressive leader whose walkathons and verbal attacks on KCR and his family gave a boost to the party. While there are rumours about why the BJP decided to go quiet on the KCR family, I wouldn’t want to buy them without evidence,” said the professor.

Ande Satyam, a political analyst and retired professor from Osmania University here, strongly suspected a secret understanding.“Suddenly no BJP leader is talking about K. Kavitha or the liquor scam. This gives rise to the suspicion about a secret deal between the two parties,” he said.

Bandi Sanjay had gone hammer and tongs against Kavitha, an MLC (member of the Legislative Council) and KCR’s daughter, alleging her involvement in the Delhi liquor scam. But the BJP has strangely gone silent on that now.

BRS spokesperson Manne Krishank, however, rubbished the allegation. “We never had an alliance with the BJP. Kavitha is not even an accused.”

“If we have a deal with the BJP why would we release this booklet?” Krishank asked, waving a BRS booklet titled “100 Lies of BJP” — a compilation of the false promises made to Telangana over the years.