Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC and daughter of ex-chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) will not be getting a Lok Sabha ticket for the 2024 Parliament polls. The development comes as the BRS is looking to shed the ‘family rule’ tag that often used by critics to attack the party. Top sources confirmed to Siasat.com that Kavitha will not be in the fray for the Lok Sabha election.
Kavitha had unsuccessfully contested from Nizamabad against Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) D Arvind in the 2019 election. While there was a buzz that she might consider contesting from Medak, a BRS functionary, who did not want to be quoted, said that a collective decision has been taken on the issue.
Prior to this, the BRS had nominated Vaddiraju Ravichandra, known as Gayatri Ravi, for the Rajya Sabha seat held by KCR’s nephew Santosh Kumar.
Does BRS want image makeover?
The decision to not have any family members contest in the Lok Sabha elections may be part of the BRS’s efforts to clean up its image amongst the public after its loss to the Congress in last year’s Assembly election. Two-time former chief minister KCR was humbled after the BRS was defeated by the grand old party that won 64 out of 119 seats.
“KCR and others have decided on this. She will not contest this time,” stated the BRS functionary.
Moreover, another BRS source also informed that the idea to have KCR’s son and ex-IT minister KT Rama Rao (KTR) contest for an MP seat was floated as well. “However, once someone becomes an MP, they are out of state politics so that is not ideal for KTR as Harish Rao would take centrestage,” added the source.
The BRS won the Telangana Assembly elections for the first time in 2014 and was in power until its defeat in 2023. Between those nine years, KTR was the state IT and industries minister, while Harish Rao held different portfolios including finance and irrigation. Kavitha became an MP after she won the Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat in 2014 first, and lost her seat to Arvind in the subsequent 2019 polls.
She later was made an MLC, which the BRS’s critics used to to target the party with the ‘family rule’ tag. Both the BJP and Congress in the state have often accused KCR of vesting power within his family in the previous government. The accusations came even from Rahul Gandhi, who himself is accused of also being a ‘dynast’ himself by the BJP.
It is to be seen who KCR nominates for the Lok Sabha elections, given that it will be tough for the BRS to win seats since it is not in power in Telangana. The BJP is expecting a direct fight with the Congress, as voters are expected to vote keeping national issues in mind. In the 2019 general elections, the BRS won nine seats, while the BJP, Congress and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslmieen won four, three and one seat each.
