Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders from Telangana ruled out all possibilities of tying up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The response comes a day after news reports suggesting that BRS working president KT Rama Rao and ex-minister Harish Rao had met BJP leaders in Delhi for talks of an alliance.
“Why would KCR even give anything to the BJP and let them grow in the state? KTR and Harish Rao had gone to talk to lawyers about Kavitha’s bail. They had not met anyone from the BJP at all. If we were going with the BJP, then our MLAs would have stayed since they can get central government support. But the defections to the ruling Congress in Telangana are still continuing,” pointed out a BRS leader from Hyderabad.
Another BRS functionary ruled out any possibility of the BRS allying with the BJP, and said that ex-party MP B Vinod saying “anything can happen in politics” does not mean anything. “KCR is way bigger than the BJP. He led the statehood movement. All we have to do is wait for some months and the Congress will automatically cause its own downfall,” he added.
Over the last few days, a news report from a national daily that suggested that the BRS would merge or join hands with the BJP has created quite a stir. However, even BJP leaders here said that the party is not interested in something to that extent.
Moreover, in Telangana, the BJP would like to grow on its own, especially after it managed to win 8 out of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. The Congress won 8 as well, and the AIMIM retained the Hyderabad seat, while the BRS drew a blank. Before that in the 2023 Assembly elections, the Congress came to power by winning 64 of the 119 seats in the state, while the bRS bagged 39. Since then, 9 BRS MLAs have defected to the Congress.
