Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) may announce plans of launching a new national party in the next two months. TRS sources informed that KCR is likely to drop insights about his plans around Dushera, and might even formally unveil a logo.
The Telangana chief minister had dropped hints of forming BRS, or the Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS), during the TRS’s plenary held last month. KCR said that he had received suggestions from leaders to turn the TRS into BRS, in order to float an all-India party. This statement of his took many by surprise at the event, where he also said that forming a new or alternative front to counter the BJP isn’t his plan.
While the idea of floating a national party, or the BRS, took many by surprise, TRS sources said that this was discussed internally earlier. However, it is unsure how KCR will take this forward. Moreover, it is also to be noted that the Telangana chief minister had in the past said he would form a non-Congress and non-BJP front before the 2019 general elections.
He even met his contemporaries like West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin, Samajwadi Party head Akhilesh Yadav and others in the past. However, it came to nothing, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Party (NDA) came to power on its own by winning over 300 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 polls.
TRS sources also informed that work has begun on the formation of a national party, or the BRS (if it will be called that). If it comes to fruition KCR’s national party, or BRS, will be in every state. Public meetings may also be held everywhere, and TRS leaders have reportedly begun reaching out to MLAs and other leaders in different states, added a TRS source.
Last month was the first time that KCR has ever spoken of starting or launching a pan-India party. Prior to this, the Telangana chief minister had only spoken of forming a third front, or non-BJP and non-Congress front.
As of now, the TRS sits comfortably in the Telangana Assembly, where it has over 100 (out of 119) MLAs. KCR won the 2014 polls with 63 seats (after which many opposition MLAs defected to the ruling party), and the 2018 state polls with a thumping number of 88, while the main opposition Congress won just 19. Post that, 12 Congress MLAs, and a few other opposition MLAs, have since defected to the TRS.
However, the TRS has also suffered some electoral setbacks. It lost the Dubbaka by-election in 2020 and the Huzurabad by-election in 2021 to the BJP. The Huzurabad bypoll was a big loss, as it was a fight between the ruling TRS and former TRS health minister Eatala Rajender, who was sacked from the state cabinet by chief minister KCR over land-grabbing charges in May last year.
Eatala resigned as an MLA and then joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in June this year. For the bypoll, KCR even announced the launch of the Dalit Bandhu scheme, under which eligible beneficiaries get Rs. 10 lakh. The ruling party’s candidate, Gellu Srinivas Yadav, a Backward Classes (BC) leader, also shows that KCR does not want to upset the BC community which comprises over 50% of the state’s population (Eatala also belongs to it).
In the 2018 Telangana Assembly polls, Rajender secured 1,04,469 votes, with Congress candidate P. Kaushik Reddy getting 60604 votes. The BJP’s Raghu Puppala got a paltry 1670 votes. In the 2018 state elections, the BJP also won just one out of 119 seats.
“There are many factions on the national level, and KCR himself is fighting the opposition (aside from the BJP) in the state. He is not as strong as he was in 2018. So in this scenario, he will not get into the national scene as it will hurt his place here. An argument will come up that he wants to become the Prime Minister, and may forget the state,” said political analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy.
Reddy added that KCR is expected to be here and that if it moves away from local politics there will be a lot of discontents. “He wants to start a narrative on a larger scale, which is how his earlier statehood movement also started. I think he may be like-minded groups to come and start a conversation, which will pressurise the BJP,” he opined.
