How to read Narendra Modi's 'mere se hi judo' offer to Revanth Reddy
The 'join me' remark was made during the prime minister's Telangana visit that he also used to pump up the BJP to aim for power in the state in 2028
Elections in the state are two and a half years away, but with his clarion call ‘Ab ki baar Telangana sarkar’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to prompt the local BJP unit to swing into action mode.
Just days after the BJP’s massive election victory in West Bengal, Modi was in Telangana capital Hyderabad on May 10, his first visit to the state in the third term. He launched development projects worth about Rs 9,400 crore in the presence of Congress chief minister A. Revanth Reddy.
Addressing a BJP rally in Secunderabad later, Modi seemed to wonder as to what was stopping his party from capturing power in Telangana where, he felt, the public’s emotions sided with the BJP. “BJP governments are being formed in places where no one dared to raise its flag earlier,” Modi noted, citing Bengal.
Modi then reminded that the BJP had always had a good base in Telangana. Back in 1984, of the only two Lok Sabha seats the party had won, one was in present-day Telangana, he said. The reference was to the Hanamkonda parliamentary constituency in undivided Andhra Pradesh.
“[Even] now, half of the Telangana MPs are from the BJP. People here are vexed with BRS (Bharat Rashtra Samithi) and Congress rule and desire change. I am very confident voters will elect the BJP to power with a thumping mandate,” declared Modi, talking a bit about how his government has been supporting Telangana to create industries and jobs.
Telangana voters, analysts say, were displeased with both the BRS and Congress five years back too—a situation that helped the BJP gain two assembly seats in bypolls—Dubbaka (2020) and Huzurabad (2021)—and raised its tally in the previous legislative assembly to three. In the current assembly, the party has eight MLAs.
Back then, the BJP had also put up an impressive show in the 2020 Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation polls, surging from four wards to 48. At that point, the party was thought to be emerging as the principal challenger to the ruling BRS.
However, the swift momentum gained by the BJP under the leadership of Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar dissipated as quickly since internal squabbles marred the party’s image and functioning. So much so that just four months before the November 2023 assembly polls, the BJP high command replaced the aggressive Kumar with Union minister G. Kishan Reddy.
On the other side, the Telangana Congress got a new leader in Revanth Reddy in mid-2021 after losing the Nagarjuna Sagar assembly seat—its third consecutive bypoll defeat in the state in the previous assembly’s term.
With the high command’s backing, Reddy worked to unify the state unit troubled by incessant internal feuds. Overcoming ‘outsider’ jabs (he was formerly with the Telugu Desam Party), Reddy set the Congress house in order. He did whirlwind tours and offered six headline-grabbing pre-election welfare guarantees to the people, steering the Congress to power in 2023.
From time to time, Reddy has exuded confidence about continuing as chief minister in the next term. Given this, Modi telling him “mere se hi judo” (join me) on May 10 immediately set off speculation. Here’s how it unfolded. At the event to launch Rs 9,400 crore worth of projects, mention had come up about how much (or less) funding Gujarat got from the Manmohan Singh government during Modi’s chief ministership of the state.
Modi said that should he follow the same measure, then Telangana’s funding would get reduced by half. “Then, you will not be able to reach where you want to be. So better, you join me,” smirked Modi, looking at Reddy and asking if he was paying attention. It seemed to have left the chief minister flustered on the dais.
The next day, Reddy, in an interaction with the media, described Modi’s remarks as light-hearted. “There was nothing political in either the suggestions made by the prime minister for Telangana’s development or the invitation to join him in achieving it,” he said.
Unlike his predecessor and BRS supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao, who famously abstained from Modi’s official events in Telangana, Reddy has been sharing the stage with the prime minister. In March 2024, at an event in Adilabad, he had called Modi “bade bhai” (elder brother) and underlined how young states like Telangana needed the Centre’s support for swift growth.
Nevertheless, Modi’s “mere se hi judo” comment has become a talking point in the state BJP. “On the face of it, it appears as if the prime minister is asking the chief minister to join him in development endeavours. But if interpreted politically, it also looks like an open offer to Revanth Reddy,” a Telangana BJP leader told INDIA TODAY.
Not to be forgotten, in this context, then is that long before he joined the Congress and became chief minister, Reddy had cut his teeth in political ideology as a leader of BJP affiliate Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
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