How a cornered KCR’s party is clutching at straws in Telangana

The BRS supremo, braving his physical condition, is on a tour to boost his party’s chances in the nine Lok Sabha seats won in 2019

Less than a month from the May 13 Lok Sabha polls in Telangana, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) is getting increasingly abrasive towards rivals Congress and the BJP as he tries to stave off his party’s existential threat following the assembly election debacle late last year.

The BRS faces an uphill task in the nine Lok Sabha seats it won in 2019, and its prospects in the remaining eight do not appear very bright either. KCR himself is battling personal setbacks—a hip fracture suffered in December just after the state election defeat and now daughter K. Kavitha’s arrest in the Delhi liquor scam case. The BRS’s plans of a nationwide expansion too have not gone anywhere.

KCR has been fiery on the campaign trail. On April 13, at an election rally in Chevella constituency, he charged the BJP with fomenting communal tension and intimidating rivals into joining its ranks. Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), one of the central agencies probing Kavitha, he fumed: “It is Modi or ED. There are only two options for Modi’s political rivals—either they join the BJP or go to jail. The BJP has buried democracy.”

KCR cautioned voters that choosing the BJP would further embolden the party into doing nothing for Telangana. “The BJP has been in power [at the Centre] for 10 years. It did nothing for our state. It sanctioned 157 medical colleges to various states but none for Telangana,” he alleged. “It didn’t even sanction an additional Navodaya School though the number of districts in the state has increased. Going by the law, we should have got 23 new Navodaya schools.”

The BRS supremo lambasted the new Congress government in Telangana over pre-election promises. “In less than 100 days, it (new government) has plunged the state into darkness,” declared KCR, alluding to the power crisis in the state. He demanded to know why the A. Revanth Reddy dispensation had discontinued the previous BRS government’s welfare programmes for various sections of the people.

“You (Congress) said you would gift one tola of gold along with a purse of Rs 1 lakh to women at the time of their marriage. Where has the gold gone? Doesn’t breaking a promise amount to cheating people?” he asked, advising people to think before voting.

KCR has tense days ahead over a judicial inquiry into alleged irregularities in the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project and a police probe into phone-tapping and extortion of select individuals allegedly at the behest of BRS leaders. He has accused the Congress of vendetta politics.

In a riposte, chief minister Reddy, who doubles as the Congress chief in Telangana, said the investigations were yet to begin. “If the Kaleshwaram and phone-tapping probes are considered revenge against KCR, it is their (BRS’s) problem,” he said.

Despite the crushing defeat suffered by the BRS in the assembly polls and the defection of several of its leaders to the Congress and BJP, KCR is banking on voters turning against the barely-months-old Reddy government. On the ground, though, it will be a daunting task for BRS to retain the nine Lok Sabha seats won last time, as the Congress appears placed advantageously. In some of these seats as well as others, the BJP too is thought to stand an equal chance.

On April 14, taking stock of the Congress’s mission to win 15 Lok Sabha seats in the state, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K.C. Venugopal told party contestants and senior leaders that it was time to target the BJP since the BRS is almost finished in the state. “You can leave out a few controversial leaders, but there are others at the mandal level who were looking for a better political future as they have lost hope in the BRS,” Venugopal said, asking the candidates and state ministers to expedite such inductions.

While the BRS is determined to regain lost ground, some of its old guard has switched loyalties to the Congress and BJP, demoralising the cadre of the ‘Pink Party’. The strong connections of these defected politicians with second-rung leaders and grassroots workers could translate into votes and fetch considerable gains for the parties they have joined.

Yet, BRS diehards hope KCR’s rhetoric can still keep the party’s electoral fortunes alive. This is perhaps why despite his post-surgery physical condition (inability to stand up and speak for long) and the sweltering summer, KCR is on a statewide bus tour to prevent the party he founded from being reduced to an also-ran in Telangana.

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Published By:
Aditya Mohan Wig
Published On:
Apr 15, 2024