The BJP's Telengana Strategy

If there is one thing that exceeds die-hard BJP supporters' passion for the BJP, it is their expectations from the party. There is very little allowance for sub-optimal moves and at the hint of even a minor slip, they become disgruntled and start criticizing the party, even before the AAP or Congress (note the order) starts.
BJP's handling of Telengana is the latest in a long list of moves that have left BJP-supporters unenthused and disappointed. I did not see either the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha debate on the Telengana bill but broad consensus from my twitter timeline (as well as newspapers) is -

• BJP's Lok Sabha performance was an unmitigated disaster. The party meekly capitulated to the bill.
• Sushma Swaraj (as usual) screwed up. Some even ventured to hint at her long-standing (purported) closeness with Sonia Gandhi as the reason for her actions in the Lok Sabha.
• By comparison, the Rajya Sabha was much better for the BJP. They moved some good amendments.
• Venkaiah Naidu earned some respect for himself from his speech in the Rajya Sabha.

Overall: the BJP's performance in the parliament with reference to the Telengana bill appears to have been a failure, at least in the eyes of supporters.
Be that as it may, it is probably time to take a bird's eye view of the whole issue. Agreed - the parliament debate, which is the final step in the whole process (nail in the coffin? :), remains at the centre even from a bird's eye view, still, the bigger picture is worth looking at.
The Big Picture

• The BJP has had a minimal presence at best, in Andhra Pradesh.
• Jagan Reddy has become the leading contender by far in appropriating the "United Andhra" faction. Chandrababu Naidu, for all his abilities & accomplishments, continues to languish at a distant 2nd in Seemandhra.
• It's KCR all the way in Telengana. No two ways about it.
• All around, I am told, Congress-decimation looms in both Seemandhra & Telengana. The thing with Machiavellian tactics is that it takes time for even a half-decently-informed observer to figure out where and how such a tactic will reap dividends. Congress, which, on the face of it, appears to be the loser, will find its own ways of bouncing back. Or not.

So where does that leave the BJP?

• Riding on the "United Andhra" bandwagon - Taken.
  Led by Jagan. 2nd spot taken by CBN. Even the Congress has its presence here in the form of Kiran Kumar Reddy (mutiny or no mutiny). So little or no sense in joining this bandwagon as a 4th player.
• Pure Telengana-play - KCR all the way, sure. But BJP has no locus standi as far as the history of this claim is concerned. So they could never use a "we have always stood for Telengana" in the sense KCR used it. Though one must add that ever since BJP ventured to express its opinion on this issue, it has been *for* Telengana. In that sense, yes, they have remained steadfast. Appreciable.

Given these circumstances, they chose the best possible alternative - stand for Telengana, but ramp up the unity factor & assuage concerns of Seemandhra. Now this is a seemingly obvious option, but surprisingly, very few apart from the BJP have espoused this, at least vocally.
When Narendra Modi thundered "Jai Telengana, Jai Seemandhra" in Hyderabad in August 2013, he was, quite noticeably, the first (and till date, possibly only) national leader who made an attempt (however meek) at establishing unity between the 2 regions. What the BJP has by its pro-Telengana stance is show its commitment to the Telengana cause. At the same time, the BJP has espoused the cause of Seemandhra admirably in a way even Jagan hasn't. While Jagan & CBN's stances have come across more from the pov of "United Andhra" as a Telugu cause, there has been little evidence of them having talked about the practical implications - economic & social aspects of Seemandhra. This is where BJP has really scored, in my opinion.
Obviously, despite having been born in Seemandhra & living next-door in TN, I am, for all practical purposes, an outsider. I am also unaware of the kind of coverage BJP's actions/commitment have got in the local media in Andhra and what the average Telugu thinks of BJP's stance (if he even has BJP in mind, that is). I am also not sure of the kind of electoral dividends the BJP is likely to reap from their Telengana strategy, in the 2014 elections (both Lok Sabha as well as Assembly) however, this is possibly the best they could have done, given the current circumstances.

The BJP Press Statement That Could Have Been - 1

@techrsr brought up an interesting point the other day about the BJP not having the locus of control of the Indian media with them. Now, I'm not sure how much of an electoral impact having the locus of control of Indian media will have, but it is a well-established fact that BJP is simply clueless (after all these days, yes) in handling the barrage of anti-BJP media outlets that dot the (sorry) Indian media landscape. In a sense, this is both funny & intriguing, considering one of their top-most leaders (supposedly?) has excellent contacts with most top media outlets. But that's a discussion for another day. Coming back, given this well-entrenched hostility, it becomes absolutely imperative for the BJP to tackle them strategically, *consistently*. As laymen-supporters of the BJP, apart from the occasional display of savvy, we are mostly left licking our self-inflicted wounds.
In light of the recent "Clarification" (an obvious euphemism for "Sorry [Hehe] for peddling lies" [Yes, I can almost see the sardonic grin on the editors' faces while printing out this joke of a clarification, which, by the way, is neither sincere nor well-intentioned nor truly apologetic]) issued by the Times of India group with respect to the "Modi rescues 15000" controversy, the handling of the issue by the BJP left a lot to be desired. Consider this - the clarification itself is neatly tucked into a corner of one of the deepest parts of the printed edition (Page 9 in the Mumbai & Chennai editions, Page 10 in the Bangalore edition, to name a few), so it is quite unlikely that this is going to be read by as many people as those who would've bought into the "self-orchestrated propaganda by the BJP" story, which, anyway, was the main aim of the ToI piece in the first place.
And dear BJP supporters, for how long can we keep taking cover under the "No publicity is bad publicity" logic? There is a point at which the actual "publicity" part of the publicity (good or bad) plateaus and in Modi's case, this point has long since been reached. Again, I don't know about the net impact (electoral or otherwise, but basically, to me, it is only the "electoral" bit that matters...at least for the next one year) of the "15000" ToI scandal, but here's what the BJP could have done immediately after the issue blew up which, I am sure, would have garnered them much more sympathy than what they will most likely receive now. A simple press release on the lines of -

"This in reference to the article "Modi lands in Uttarakhand, flies out with 15,000 Gujaratis" published in the Times of India. The BJP would like to categorically state that this is a totally baseless number that is being quoted and no BJP representative has been contacted in this regard. We would further like to add that Shri Narendra Modi was indeed instrumental in part of the relief work that is being carried out in Uttarakhand, however his relief efforts were not restricted to people of any particular community, region or language. Furthermore, at a time of grave crisis like this, what matters is that all effort possible be rendered to the needy across political and ideological differences and not one-upmanship based on numbers. Publishing such an article with unsubstantiated data amounts to rumour-mongering. Instead of helping focus on the relief work being carried out by all parties, this is a grossly irresponsible act of journalism by one of the country's oldest journalistic institutions. We strongly condemn this rather mischievous attempt to insinuate controversy and demand an apology by Times of India in the front page of ALL their editions, with all the clarifications stated above, failing which, we will be forced to take legal action against them."

Alas, that was not to be. With such an insincere and delayed "Clarification" by ToI, when the whole issue is more or less out of public memory, has the damage been done?
Your guess is as good as mine.

Prologue: Going by recent happenings, one can't help but begin to wonder if Shekhar Gupta was indeed right when he said that instead of setting the agenda, the BJP is walking right into Congress' trap. One of the impressive aspects about Narendra Modi so far has been his ability to set the terms of the discourse and decide the agenda. If recent events are any indication, this ability appears to be waning. It is too early to conclude, but a course correction is definitely in order.