Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has addressed two press conferences in two weeks — one on February 1, another on February 13. This is highly unusual given the Chief Minister rarely addresses the press. On both occasions, he slammed the ruling party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asked about unfulfilled promises and spoke about unifying political parties to unseat the party at the Union government.
KCR has been attacking the BJP with renewed vigour in these meetings and at the same time, seems to be softening his stance towards the Congress. At a public meeting at Raigiri last week, he slammed PM Modi for Assam Chief Minister’s remarks against Rahul Gandhi, stating he was ashamed by the kind of language used by Himanta Biswa Sarma against Rahul Gandhi. “Mere aankhon mein paani aa raha hai,” he said.
This new support for Rahul Gandhi, as well as TRS toning down its attacks on the Congress has raised questions about a new relationship between the two parties.
KCR and his son KT Rama Rao, popularly known as KTR, have often been asked who they consider their worthy opponent in Telangana – the Congress or the BJP? The reply has always been that neither qualifies to even be called an opponent. However, there has always been speculation of a bond between TRS and the BJP, fueled by the fact that TRS has largely supported BJP policies when it came up for a vote — whether it was GST and demonetisation or the Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections.
Now, that very same chief minister seems to have decided that BJP is his party’s main enemy.
In fact, a highly placed source revealed to TNM that KCR has been in touch with political strategists and has approached them to help build his political image nationally. “Since November, CM KCR has been meeting political strategists. The idea is to build his image. KCR also knows that he cannot have two enemies, he needs to have one. There isn’t any plank to attack Congress as they have been out of power for the last two terms. In Telangana too, it has become crucial to project the BJP as the main enemy, and not the Congress,” revealed the source.
This is not the first time that CM KCR has indicated he has national ambitions and has always advocated for a non-BJP, non-Congress national front. In 2018 and 2019, he followed this up with meetings with other political leaders in the country. The media soon called this the genesis of a federal front in the country. But it fizzled out after the BJP won a thumping majority in the 2019 General Elections.
KCR will be meeting Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on February 20, and a meeting with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee is also in the works. The Chief Minister's Office also said that JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda reached out to KCR to congratulate him for his efforts to fight against the communal politics of the BJP. A statement said that Deve Gowda has pledged complete support to KCR and urged him to continue the fight.
KCR’s hopes of creating a non-BJP, non-Congress front in 2018 during the Assembly elections in the state never moved forward. At the time, he had accused both the national parties of failing India. By coming out in support of Rahul Gandhi now and demanding the dismissal of the Assam Chief Minister, it gives the impression that KCR may believe that Congress’s role or presence in the new front is essential.
According to AICC spokesperson and senior Congress leader Sravan Dasoju, CM KCR wants to portray himself as an aggressive leader. “Though he is on the defence now, he knows Revanth Reddy from the Congress and Bandi Sanjay from the BJP are aggressive leaders. KCR doesn’t have much to criticise Modi because KCR has supported Modi openly or tacitly throughout,” he said.
He cited decisions such as demonetisation and GST, which he said were overtly or covertly supported by KCR. “Was one word uttered by KCR when the surgical strike happened? A person who was silent then is now bringing it up,” he said.
Dasoju said that this is KCR’s strategy to defeat anti-incumbency, and is going on the offensive.
In February 2014, KCR travelled to Delhi to thank Sonia Gandhi for her decision about granting statehood to Telangana. Though KCR said that no politics was discussed in the meeting, Congress leadership from Telangana had revealed to the media that a merger of TRS and Congress was likely. However, after the Telangana Act came to pass, the merger did not take place.
Political analyst and journalist P Pavan Kumar feels that the national leadership of Congress will not trust KCR again. “KCR had taken his family along to meet Sonia Gandhi but after the Bill was passed, KCR changed his decision and also his attitude. Despite granting Telangana, Congress was left in the lurch. The national leadership of Congress does not believe him,” he said.
Pavan added that it is highly impractical to expect KCR and Revanth Reddy to work together. “If at all KCR does join hands with the Congress, Revanth Reddy will leave the party,” said Pavan.
The decision to join hands with the Congress would also have repercussions in Telangana, he said. “KCR will have a tough time convincing his friend Owaisi, who strongly believes Congress is responsible for the harassment the Muslims are facing in this country through laws like UAPA,” said Pavan.
BJP state chief Bandi Sanjay alleged on February 13 that CM KCR has been in contact with the Congress high command. He also went on to allege that a Congress MP from Andhra Pradesh was brokering peace between both parties and that the BJP has been saying for long that the TRS and the Congress have a pact which is now in the open.
Describing KCR as an embodiment of opportunism, Bandi Sanjay said, “Even Chameleons would be put to shame on seeing KCR who changes his word frequently.”
Sridhar Reddy, TRS leader, who had previously worked with the BJP for 11 years in Telangana, feels that TRS still has the support of the people and that KCR continues to be the undisputed leader in Telangana. “The BJP is managing to make some noise in the state. In fact, there was more noise when G Kishan Reddy was the party president. If that kind of noise didn’t dent the TRS back then, nothing really can,” he said.
He said that he has seen BJP from close quarters and can confidently say that it was never an alternative to TRS in Telangana. “BJP, at most, may manage to win a few more seats in the state, but there is no question of being a competition to the TRS in the state. The Assembly elections are not at all a worry for KCR and the TRS. We are far ahead and there isn’t really a competition,” said Reddy.
Explaining KCR’s softened stance against the Congress, Reddy said that the latter has been written off and is not a threat at the state or national level. “We want to highlight to the public the misgovernance of Narendra Modi. Congress is insignificant at the moment. The front that is being worked upon will surely be a non-Congress, non- BJP front,” added Reddy.
In 2018, KCR strategically went in for early elections, resigning on September 6, 2018, nearly nine months before the completion of his term. The Telugu Desam Party, the Congress and the Communist Party of India (CPI) came together to form an alliance under the Mahakutami banner. Despite a politically heated campaign by all parties, the TRS came back to power with a thumping majority, emerging victorious in 88 seats out of the 119 Assembly constituencies.
The result proved that KCR still remained a popular leader among the people of the state and that the anti-incumbency was not that major a factor as claimed by the opposition parties. The Congress settled for the second position with 19 seats while the BJP settled for the fifth position, behind Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the TDP, with only 1 seat. T Raja Singh from Goshamahal in Hyderabad was the lone BJP MLA who emerged victorious.
In the Dubbaka and the Huzurabad bye-elections that followed later, the BJP managed to increase its tally to 3, with two more MLAs emerging victorious. These wins were a shot in the arm for the national party, which has been working out strategies to come up with the perfect formula against the TRS in the next Assembly elections.
The state units of both the Congress and the BJP witnessed a change of guard. Firebrand youth leader Revanth Reddy replaced Captain Uttam Kumar Reddy as the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee President while Bandi Sanjay replaced Dr K Laxman as the BJP’s state unit chief. Both parties hope to put up a tough fight and improve their tallies in the next election. It remains to be seen if KCR, like the last time, will again decide to go in for early elections this time.
According to sources in the party, TRS will decide on its next course of action only after the results of the five states that have gone to the polls. Meanwhile, political strategists help build KCR’s image nationally and suggest tactics to attack the Union government, and the Chief Minister continues efforts to reach out to other like-minded opposition leaders, trying to position himself as the man leading the movement against the BJP.