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KCR’s silence baffles party cadre, leaders hope he will bounce back
KCR, as the former chief minister is popularly known, has been confined mostly to his farmhouse at Erravelli village in Siddipet district
Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president and former Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s unusual silence for the last few weeks is baffling the party leaders and cadre, even as his son K T Rama Rao and nephew T Harish Rao have been going aggressive in their attack on the Congress government in the state led by chief minister A Revanth Reddy, according to people familiar with the matter.
People in the party said that KCR, as the former chief minister is popularly known, has been confined mostly to his farmhouse at Erravelli village in Siddipet district. He has not been making any public appearances nor is he available to most of the party leaders and cadre, except a few close confidants.
The last time he made an appearance before the media was on July 25, when he came to the state assembly for the first time after losing power to the Congress in the November 30 assembly elections.
“He sat in the assembly for a few minutes during the presentation of the annual budget by finance minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and left the House even before the speech was completed. He made some critical remarks speaking to reporters at the media point in the assembly and left. After that, he went into hiding again,” a BRS leader, who refused to be quoted, said.
Though KCR appeared shattered after the assembly elections, in which the BRS ended up with just 39 assembly seats in the 119-member assembly, he did not lose heart. He was confident of regaining the lost ground in the Lok Sabha elections held on May 13, by winning at least half a dozen MP seats out of total number of 17 seats in the state.
One of the party leaders said that the arrest of his daughter and MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha in the Delhi excise policy scam on March 15 totally demoralised him yet he did extensive campaigning during the Lok Sabha elections, addressing a series of meetings. But his party drew a blank, while the Congress and the BJP walked away with eight MP seats each and the AIMIM retained its lone seat from Hyderabad.
“Till then, KCR used to shuttle between his Banjara Hills residence and Erravelli farmhouse. But after the Lok Sabha elections, he preferred to spend most of his time in the farmhouse, refusing to come to Hyderabad, let alone attending the assembly session,” the BRS leader quoted above said.
A series of defections from the BRS into the Congress, including that of 10 MLAs, a Rajya Sabha member and a few former MLAs and senior leaders, has also demoralised KCR. Besides, investigations into the damages to Kaleshwaram project, irregularities in power sector and phone-tapping episode during the BRS regime also caused a big setback to him.
Though KCR made an attempt to strike back by questioning the judicial probe into the power purchase deals during his regime and even by moving the Supreme Court, he did not get much relief.
With KCR going completely into a self-imposed exile, the onus of sustaining the BRS and resurrecting it to take on the Congress has fallen on the shoulders of his son K T Rama Rao, who is the working president of the party and his nephew T Harish Rao, who has also been playing a key role in the party right from its inception in 2001.
Both KTR and Harish Rao have been taking on the Congress government effectively inside the state assembly and outside, attacking Revanth Reddy for failing to implement six guarantees promised by the Congress before the elections.
On Saturday, both KTR and Harish Rao launched a tirade against the Revanth government for betraying the people on the crop loan waiver scheme. “The chief minister has only partially implemented the loan waiver scheme by waiving only ₹17,900 crore as against ₹31,000 crore announced earlier. He is now pretending to have fulfilled all his commitments,” Harish Rao said, speaking to reporters.
He asserted that the BRS would continue to fight for full loan waivers and farmers’ welfare, and announced plans to lead another farmers’ movement.
Another BRS leader said though KCR is not actively involved in day-to-day activities of the party, he has been guiding the party leaders from time to time, from his farmhouse itself. “He is working out strategies to rebuild the party network from the grassroots level and strengthen the organisation by next elections,” he said.
As part of the strategy, he deputed a team of BRS leaders led by former MP Balka Suman to Chennai to study the organisational structure of the DMK, which has a strong grassroots presence unlike the BRS on August 11 and 12.
The team interacted with DMK leaders, including party organising secretary RS Bharathi, to understand their organisational structure and strengths. “Visited DMK party office Anna Arivalayam in Chennai and interacted with the DMK leaders mainly Organisation secretary, ex-MP RS Bharati, ex-MLA Shekhar garlu about the DMK party organisational structure and its activities along with Anjaneya goud, Ravindar Reddy & Tunga Balu,” Suman tweeted after his tour on August 12.
Political analyst Mohammad Zakeer said one should not underestimate KCR, who is a shrewd politician. “He has witnessed several ups and downs in the past. Though the recent electoral debacles and the arrest of Kavitha have demoralised him to a great extent, he has the ability to bounce back and revive the party,” he said.
However, the Congress is going all out to further demoralise the BRS. The ruling party has launched a campaign that KCR is silently lobbying to get closer to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BRS) at the national level and see that his daughter Kavitha is bailed out of the liquor policy scam.
On Friday, Revanth Reddy told reporters in New Delhi that KCR was contemplating merger of the BRS with the BJP sooner or later. “He is trying to strike a deal with the BJP to that effect. If it materialises, KCR will become the governor of a state, while his son KTR will be inducted into the Narendra Modi cabinet,” he said, adding that all the four Rajya Sabha members of the BRS would also join the BJP.
He further predicted that Kavitha would come out of the jail soon and would be made a Rajya Sabha member. In Telangana, KCR’s nephew Harish Rao will be handed over the reins of the state BJP and he will become the leader of opposition in the assembly. “It is going to happen, if not immediately, but in the coming days,” the chief minister said.
KTR vehemently condemned the predictions of the chief minister. He said in fact, Revanth Reddy himself would join the BJP along with his team soon. He reminded that the chief minister had begun his political journey with the saffron party.
“He only said in the past that he was born in the BJP and he would end his political journey in the BJP under the saffron flag,” KTR recalled and challenged the chief minister to deny his statement.
