Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party working president KT Rama Rao on Tuesday said that the de-recognition of BRS as a state party status in Andhra Pradesh is just a technicality.
According to a notification by the secretariat of the election commission, BRS’ status as a state party in Andhra Pradesh has been withdrawn. The party will now be treated as a state-recognised political party in Telangana only.
Speaking to media, KTR said that the BRS lost its recognition as a state party in AP as it had not contested in any elections since the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. “We didn’t contest in the last elections, so we didn’t win. What is there in that?” said the party leader.
“The fact is that we (BRS party) have never contested in the elections in the past, but the past is not an indication of the future,” said KTR indicating that BRS is still positive about the situation.
Following the party’s announcement that it will contest all the assembly seats in the upcoming election.
Andhra Pradesh BRS chief Thota Chandrasekhar on Sunday said that BRS will contest all 175 seats in the next assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh. “Our party will also contest from all the 25 parliamentary constituencies in the state,” he added.
“We were a recognised party for the last five-six years. According to the rules a recognised party needs to fulfil certain conditions, like having 3 MLAs, or having 6 percent of votes. Because we didn’t contest or even fulfil anything, it probably happened. We had contested in 2014 in AP, and that’s when we got recognised after,” said another BRS leader who wished to be unnamed.
The Election Commission on Monday recognised the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a national party and withdrew the national party status of the All India Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI).
In an order issued on Monday, the Commission also revoked the state party status granted to RLD in Uttar Pradesh, PDA in Manipur, PMK in Puducherry, RSP in West Bengal and MPC in Mizoram.
The Commission said the AAP has been named as a national party based on its electoral performance in four states — Delhi, Goa, Punjab and Gujarat.
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