Senior JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy along with 20 of his party MLAs left for Hyderabad on Tuesday to back Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who is expected to announce the Telangana Rashtra Samiti's foray into national politics on October 5.
READ | Kumaraswamy hits out at BJP on Hindi Diwas celebrations
The TRS is likely to be renamed as ‘Bharata Rashtra Samiti’ (BRS), the ruling party sources said in Hyderabad. Kumaraswamy, the JD(S) second-in-command, and the MLAs left for Hyderabad by a special plane on Tuesday. Rao, the TRS President, had called on former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda and his son Kumaraswamy in May this year in Bengaluru and had a discussion on this issue with them.
Kumaraswamy too had visited Hyderabad recently and had an interaction. According to a JD(S) insider, the BRS will be a conglomeration of various regional parties, which are fighting against the BJP in their respective states.
“The idea is to put up a united fight against the BJP. Basically, it’s a combination of various regional parties who want to rise above their political differences and come together,” the JD(S) leader said. He alleged that various regional parties are being "harassed" by the BJP using central agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation, Income Tax and the Enforcement Directorate.