Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his Delhi and Punjab counterparts Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann along with Samajwadi party chief Akhilesh Yadav visited Lord Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Yadadri near here on Wednesday, ahead of the ruling BRS public meeting at Khammam town.
Rao, Kejriwal, Mann and Yadav offered prayers at the temple, which has been renovated on a grand scale by the BRS government.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPI General Secretary D Raja also reached Yadadri, according to an official release. However, they did not go for 'darshan,' party sources said.
Earlier, Rao hosted Kejriwal, Mann, Vijayan, Yadav and Raja for breakfast at Pragati Bhavan, his camp office-cum-official residence in Hyderabad.
Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan, CPI General Secretary D Raja and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav are attending the mega BRS meeting happening in Khammam district. Nearly 6 lakh people from 13 constituencies in the erstwhile Khammam district are expected to attend the event.
The meeting assumes political significance as it is the first public meeting after the TRS decided to go national by renaming itself as BRS and also because leaders of different opposition parties -- BRS, Aam Admi Party (AAP), Samajwadi Party and the Left -- would be seen together.
The venue for the meeting is a 100-acre space, around which 448 acres have been designated for 20 parking lots.
At Khammam, about 200 km from Hyderabad, they would attend the launch of the second phase of 'Kanti Velugu', the Telangana government's eye screening programme.
Speaking after hoisting the pink colour flag of BRS after the Election Commission approved the name change of TRS as BRS in December, 2022, Rao, also known as KCR, exuded confidence that the "pink flag would fly high on the Red Fort one day."
Addressing his party leaders then, he gave the slogan of 'Ab ki baar kisan sarkar' (farmers' government this time) and said new economic, environment, water, electricity and women empowerment policies are needed in the country.
Khammam, which is situated along the Andhra Pradesh border, has seen a lot of political activity lately. In December 2022, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu addressed a public meeting in Khammam in a show of strength for the party for the first time since facing a major defeat in the 2018 Assembly elections. Speaking at the meeting, Naidu expressed confidence that the party will regain its past glory in Telangana.
Khammam has a large population of the Kamma community, a dominant caste to which Naidu and TDP founder NT Rama Rao belong. The region has social and cultural influences of Andhra Pradesh, and does not have a strong connection with the Telangana statehood agitation according to political analysts, who believe that BRS may find it difficult to win in Khammam constituencies in the 2023 Assembly election.
YSR Telangana Party founder (YSRTP) and president YS Sharmila has already announced that she will contest from Palair constituency in Khammam district in the upcoming polls, marking her political debut in Telangana. Ahead of the big BRS meeting in Khammam, Sharmila slammed KCR for his choice of the venue, alleging that he had failed the district in the last nine years of being in power
With PTI and IANS inputs