KCR, who won the 2014 and 2018 state elections in Telangana, had been talking about floating a non-BJP and non-Congress “federal front” as an alternative at the Centre.
On Sunday, June 11, Telangana Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) national president K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) inducted political leaders from Madhya Pradesh into the party. The move is part of KCR’s attempts to expand the party nationally. With the expansion in sight, he had rechristened Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to BRS last year. The party has also seen political leaders from the neighbouring Maharashtra joining its fold. The Chief Minister said that the BRS will soon set up its own office in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal. According to a statement from the BRS, KCR said that campaign vehicles should be arranged in all the constituencies of Madhya Pradesh.
At Sunday’s event, KCR criticised the Election Commission of India for failing to stop irregularities and “misdeeds” of inciting hatred by some parties in the country. Without naming the BJP-led Union government, KCR said that nothing has changed in the country post independence and that people are still struggling in north India.
KCR, who won the 2014 and 2018 state elections in Telangana, has been talking about floating a non-BJP and non-Congress “federal front” as an alternative at the Centre. It is however unsure whether the BRS will actually contest elections outside of Telangana, especially in bordering states like Maharashtra, and others like Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. The party has inducted several ex-legislators, from parties like NCP and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, for instance.
Before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he met several political leaders, including Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, among others. The meetings however came to nought, and the BJP won a resounding victory in the 2019 general elections. Moreover, aligning with the Congress is not an option for KCR, given that the former is the main opposition party in Telangana.
However, KCR took everyone by surprise after renaming TRS to BRS, announcing his plans to go national. While his party has been inducting leaders from other states, including the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh as well, it is to be seen whether KCR is serious about expanding the BRS’s footprint beyond its home state of Telangana (given that the party was initially founded in 2011 with the sole aim to demand for Telangana’s bifurcation from Andhra Pradesh).
At Sunday’s meeting, the BRS said that ex-MP and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Buddhasen Patel joined the party as the state coordinator of Madhya Pradesh for the party. “Under the leadership of Patel, former MLAs from Madhya Pradesh and other 200 key political leaders including public representatives joined the BRS party in the presence of the leader CM KCR,” the BRS’s statement added.
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