KCR's gameplan: National role without Congress's support

Telangana CM's recent trip to Maharashtra seems to be part of a solitary strategy. But will it work, or is TRS indeed a BJP 'B' team as the Congress alleges?

When Bharat Rashtra Samithi president and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao led a huge convoy of over 600 vehicles from Hyderabad to Maharashtra’s Solapur and Pandharpur on a two-day visit last week, it evoked a lot of curiosity in political circles.

Telangana CM KCR being welcomed by supporters in Solapur on Monday. (ANI)

It was not the first time that KCR, as the Telangana chief minister is called, visited Maharashtra. Since February 5, when he addressed his first public rally at Bhokar in Nanded — the first rally outside Telangana after the transformation of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) into Bharat Rashtra Samithi — he travelled to the neighbouring state thrice: to Kandhar-Loha on March 26, to Aurangabad on April 24 and to Nanded town on May 19.

But the chief minister’s two-day visit to Pandharpur towards the end of June was unusual. Unlike in the earlier meetings when he flew down to the venues to address rallies, KCR this time chose to travel by road in a specially designed bus, followed by a huge convoy of vehicles, carrying his cabinet colleagues, MPs, MLAs, MLCs and other senior party leaders. It was meant to be a show of strength.

The timing of KCR’s two-day tour to Maharashtra was also a part of KCR’s calculated strategy – it happened at a time when 15 opposition parties converged at Patna to build a platform to pull down the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre in the next year’s general elections.

KCR was not invited to the meeting, as these parties were suspicious of his political strategies that appeared to be indirectly benefiting the BJP. “There is no clarity from the BRS president on his fight against the BJP in the 2024 general elections. That is why we have not invited him,” Janata Dal (United) spokesman K C Tyagi told reporters a few days before the Patna meeting.

Obviously, the Telangana chief minister’s visit to Solapur and Pandharpur has not gone down well with the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackery) and the Congress.

“If a chief minister of a neighbouring state comes to visit a temple and offer prayers, there is no reason to object. But, coming with a huge motorcade is worrisome. Instead of showing strength, KCR should have focused on further strengthening cooperation between the two states,” NCP chief Sharad Pawar said in Pune, a day after KCR returned to Hyderabad.

Sharad Pawar was also not happy with the way KCR has been poaching several NCP leaders into the BRS in Maharashtra, including Bhagirath Bhalke, who unsuccessfully contested on an NCP ticket from Pandharpur in the 2021 polls. While Bhalke was a two-time MLA, other leaders from NCP include Chandrapur district unit president Priyadarshan Ajay Ingle, district unit vice-president Nikhil Jagdish Duryodhan, Ghugus city unit president Dilip Oshanna Pittalwar, youth wing secretary Hemant Singh Thakur, as well as minority cell secretary Arif Azmi and Thane district vice president Maqsood Khan.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut also suspected KCR’s strategy and told reporters in Mumbai that the BRS aimed to hurt the prospects of the MVA and divide votes. “To whom is KCR trying to show this strength,” Raut asked.

Shiv Sena (UBT)’s mouthpiece Saamana, which Raut is the editor of, also lashed out at KCR in an editorial for putting up a big show in Maharashtra, calling it the ‘B’ team of the BJP and accusing it of wanting to pave the way for the BJP by splitting votes that would otherwise go to the Shiv Sena.

WHAT IS KCR’S GAME PLAN?

It was only in February 2022 that the KCR had visited Mumbai along with his party leaders and held meetings with Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray to discuss the issue of opposition unity to take on the BJP. But after the collapse of Uddhav government due to a split in Shiv Sena, KCR began distancing himself from the MVA.

He had earlier held a series of meetings with the other opposition leaders including Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Janata Dal (U) chief Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Laloo Prasad Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M K Stalin, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief Hemanth Soren, and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal, with a proposal to build an anti-BJP and anti-Congress front.

But there were no takers for his proposal, as many of the parties suggested that the Congress should be part of the opposition front. They were apprehensive that KCR’s plan would result in splitting the anti-BJP vote.

Following this, KCR came out with his strategy of projecting himself as the only alternative to the BJP. In October 2022, he transformed his TRS into the BRS with the slogan: “Ab ki baar, kisan sarkar.” Since then, he has been trying to give a national outlook for his party. By December, the Election Commission approved the name change. The party symbol continues to remain the same.

Initially, he tried to step into Karnataka by joining hands with Janata Dal (Secular) led by H D Kumaraswamy and announced that his party would campaign for the JD (S) in the assembly elections scheduled for May. His party leaders regularly visited the constituencies in Karnataka bordering Telangana to prepare the ground for the expansion of the BRS in the neighbouring state.

But when the elections were actually announced, BRS backtracked likely because he recognised that Congress was stronger than JD (S). Congress’s win may have only strengthened his understanding of Congress as the bigger threat.

So, KCR has turned his attention to Maharashtra, even before the Karnataka elections. He addressed four rallies in Nanded, Aurangabad and Nagpur. He also inaugurated the party’s first office in Nagpur on June 15.

At a meeting of the BRS functionaries from 288 assembly constituencies of Maharashtra held at the party office in Hyderabad on May 19, the BRS chief announced that the party would expand to over 45,000 villages and in 5,000 municipal wards in civic bodies in Maharashtra. "India awaits new leadership. India is fed up with present leaders. Today we are focusing on Maharashtra. Tomorrow you will have to work in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh," he said.

"Once the party work in Maharashtra begins, I will also go to the states in north India for a couple of weeks and work for the BRS there,” he added.

Political analysts, however, say there is a much bigger game plan behind KCR’s latest rhetoric in Maharashtra. “He has repackaged the TRS into BRS only to divert the people’s attention from the real issues and battle the anti-incumbency in Telangana,” political analyst and Osmania University professor K Nageshwar said.

He said KCR needed a space for himself in the national political scenario after the assembly elections in Telangana, irrespective of whether the BRS wins or loses. “If the BRS returns to power in Telangana, there is every possibility that he will step down to make his son K T Rama Rao as the chief minister and move to national politics, for which he needs some foundation. That is why, he is expanding his party base in other states,” Nageshwar said.

Political analyst and author Sriram Karri identified three possibilities that underpinned KCR’s gameplan. One, is a possible understanding between the BRS and the BJP on the basis of which KCR may contest elections in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to split the anti-BJP vote. In return, the BJP-led Centre would go soft on KCR and his family.

Two, by expanding the party footprints in the neighbouring states, KCR wants to convey the message to the people of Telangana that if he is elected to power again, he would gain credibility and strength to play a bigger battle at the national level in the 2024 general elections.

Three, the BJP doesn’t want KCR to be part of the proposed alliance of all opposition parties, as it will strengthen the anti-BJP forces and may even upset the BJP applecart.

Not too long ago, Telangana BJP leaders had claimed that there were financial irregularities in the construction of the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project and asked Central government agencies to initiate an inquiry. BJP national president J P Nadda also made allegations about KCR having jacked up the cost of the Kaleshwaram project from ₹35,000 crore to over ₹1 lakh crore only for kickbacks. At the same time, the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate questioned KCR’s daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha over her alleged role in the Delhi liquor policy scam.

On July 8, prime minister Narendra Modi called KCR's government, the "most corrupt" and whose corruption had even reached the National Capital, in a reference to Kavitha's alleged role in the liquor policy scam. The PM was in Warangal to launch development projects.

BRS working president K T Rama Rao, however, said his party would play a big role in the national politics in the coming years. “We may appear like a small political outfit now. But every long journey will begin with just one step and we are now taking the initial steps. The BJP, too, began with just two MPs and now, it has grown to the level of ruling the country and many states,” he told a national news agency last week.

KTR said the BRS had not joined hands with other parties to form an anti-BJP front. “We do not believe in the theory of pulling down one party and bringing another party to power at the Centre. Both the Congress and the BJP betrayed the people. We want people to win and we shall strive in that direction,” he said.

WHAT’S BREWING FOR KCR?

Though he dreams of playing a larger role in national politics, KCR is aware of the fact he has to fight a tough battle back home in Telangana in the assembly elections scheduled this year-end on account of a resurgence of opposition parties, Congress and BJP.

The Congress, which has been plagued with infighting and group rivalries, has only five MLAs in the 119-member state assembly. Though it had won three MP seats in 2019 general elections, it lost all the by-polls to the assembly in the last three years, besides losing heavily in the local body elections. Many of its senior leaders have defected either to the BRS or the BJP.

On the other hand, the BJP had been steadily growing in Telangana in the last three years, having won four MP seats, two by-elections to the state assembly and one-third of seats in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections.

Wary of the threat from the BJP, the BRS chief had been attacking the saffron party in general and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular in the last two years. He even tried to bring a case against BJP's top leadership for allegedly poaching four BRS MLAs.

The BRS government did a sting operation which led to the arrest of three people in October last year for allegedly trying to poach four MLAs into the BJP, by offering them money, posts and contracts. The BRS leaders claimed BJP national organisation secretary B L Santosh and a few others were responsible. The case was entrusted to a Special Investigation Team. However, the case has not made any headway: the arrested are out on bail and the SIT, which was supposed to question Santosh and others, could not do it due to a stay from the state high court.

After the central probe agencies began to inquire into KCR’s daughter and MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha’s role in the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam, the BRS chief backtracked. Now, there is complete silence from both sides – there is no progress in the CID probe into the MLAs’ poaching case nor in the Enforcement Directorate’s probe into Kavitha’s role in the liquor scam.

“It clearly shows there is a nexus between the BRS and the BJP. That is why KCR has stopped attacking the BJP and is targeting the Congress,” PCC president A Revanth Reddy said at a press conference in Khammam on Friday.

The victory of the Congress in Karnataka in the just concluded assembly elections has completely changed the political dynamics in Telangana. The BJP has become totally beleaguered for the last one month, with senior leaders like Huzurabad MLA Eatala Rajender and former Munugode MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy raising a banner of revolt against state BJP president of Bandi Sanjay.

Several potential leaders like former Khammam MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and former minister Jupalli Krishna Rao, who were contemplating joining the BJP after they were sacked from the BRS, changed their minds and jumped into the Congress. Many others are contemplating deserting the BJP to try their luck in the Congress.

The BJP on July 4 appointed new state presidents in four states, including poll-bound Telangana in what is seen as the first wave of organisational changes ahead of key state elections later this year and the national elections in 2024.

Among the changes announced, Union minister G Kishen Reddy has been appointed the president of the state unit in Telangana, while Etela Rajender has been given charge of the election management committee.

The resurgence of the Congress has now pushed KCR to rework the strategies. Apart from targeting the Congress, instead of the BJP, the chief minister is focusing on luring disgruntled Congress leaders into the BRS. “Now, the Congress is a bigger threat. We need to work hard to win the elections,” a BRS leader said on condition of anonymity.

Political analyst Karri said with the BJP facing internal wrangling over state leadership, the narrative will shift towards the Revanth Reddy-led Congress as the primary challenger for the BRS. “The coming elections will definitely be a tougher challenge for KCR,” he said.