Telangana Chief Minister and TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao and DMK President MK Stalin will meet in Chennai on Monday at 4.00 pm. The meeting will take place at Stalin’s residence in Chennai.
The meeting between the two leaders comes days after the DMK called off the meet citing Stalin’s campaign commitments for the bye-elections to four constituencies in Tamil Nadu that are set to take place on May 19. The DMK, which is an ally of the UPA, had earlier attempted to play down the meeting, terming it as a ‘courtesy’. This given that Stalin was the first leader to endorse Congress President Rahul Gandhi for Prime Minister but also because the Congress has in the past accused KCR of being the B-team of the BJP.
This is the second meeting between the two leaders in just over a year, with KCR visiting Stalin in April 2018 over his Federal Front idea. With this meeting, the revival of KCR’s ambitious Federal Front, a coalition of non-BJP non-Congress parties at the Centre has received a boost, as he meets his regional leaders from across the southern states.
It is being reported that KCR left for Chennai with his family on Sunday afternoon on a chartered flight and is scheduled to stay in the city for the entire day. He has also planned to meet Karnataka CM and JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy, and may follow it up with a meeting with Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. YSRCP leader Jagan Mohan Reddy is already part of KCR’s Federal Front and has said that the two Telugu states will bargain as a bloc.
Incidentally, the Congress reached out to both TRS and YSRCP for informal talks to discuss a post-poll alliance. However, both TRS and YSRCP remained non-committal, asking Congress leaders to wait for the results that will be out on May 23.
The Telangana Chief Minister had met Kerala CM and CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram on May 6 in a closed door meeting. Later, in a press conference last week, the Kerala CM told reporters, “Yesterday's meeting with KCR was significant. We discussed the national political scenario. According to KCR, both the fronts may not get a majority. So, the regional parties will play a prominent role. There were no discussions about the PM candidate.”