More than a month after renaming his 21-year-old Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) as Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will be holding his first public rally at Khammam on January 18, a party spokesman said.
The rally would be attended by Aam Aadmi Party president and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, the party spokesman said.
“The meeting at Khammam is a platform to announce the formal launch of KCR’s national expansion plan. It will display the unity of several like-minded political parties in the country to project an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party at the national level,” the spokesman said.
While launching the national headquarters of the BRS in New Delhi on December 14, KCR, as the chief minister is called, decided to kickstart the national action plan in Delhi by addressing a national media conference in the last week of December.
The party also planned a series of public meetings of BRS Kisan Cells in Maharashtra and Karnataka, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. However, the chief minister has now decided to have the inaugural rally of the BRS on the home turf first, before moving to other states, in view of the forthcoming assembly elections in Telangana, scheduled in another 10 months.
{{/usCountry}}The party also planned a series of public meetings of BRS Kisan Cells in Maharashtra and Karnataka, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. However, the chief minister has now decided to have the inaugural rally of the BRS on the home turf first, before moving to other states, in view of the forthcoming assembly elections in Telangana, scheduled in another 10 months.
{{/usCountry}}The BRS spokesman said the public meeting at Khammam would be held on January 18 after KCR inaugurates the integration district offices complex in Khammam earlier in the day.
“The chief minister is expected to explain the BRS party’s national plans and seek support from people for him to foray into national politics. He is also likely to explain broadly on the party’s national agenda at the public meeting,” the spokesman said.
Ex-Khammam MP to quit BRS to join BJP
Interestingly, on the same day when KCR will be addressing the inaugural BRS rally in Khammam, former parliament member of BRS from the same district Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy will be meeting senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi.
Reddy, who represented Khammam parliamentary constituency between 2014 and 2019, has been sulking for being sidelined in the BRS for quite some time. “Soon after meeting Shah on January 18, he will resign from the BRS and join the BJP,” a Telangana BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.
The former MP is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 19, when the latter comes to Hyderabad to inaugurate the Vande Bharat Express train. He is also planning to take out a huge rally in Khammam later, the BJP leader said.
Reddy has already been holding a series of meetings with his followers and discussing his future course of action. At a meeting held at Khammam last week, he openly expressed his resentment for being meted out humiliation in the party.