No front has been formed yet, says KCR after meeting Hemant Soren in Ranchi

The Telangana chief minister underscored that the country could not achieve the kind of development it should have in 75 years hence there was a need to ‘try out something new’, making it apparent that he was eying a role in national politics.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said on Friday that it was wrong to assume that he was trying to put together an anti-BJP front, even as he underlined

KCR was in Ranchi on a one-day tour, along with his wife, daughter, grandson, other party leaders and top officers to provide financial aid to the families of two soldiers who were killed in the Galwan Valley clash in 2020. (HT PHOTO.)

that he was holding ‘discussions’ with several leaders to chalk out a plan to “try something new” in order to give a new direction to the country.

KCR was in Ranchi on a one-day tour, along with his wife, daughter, grandson, other party leaders and top officers to provide financial aid to the families of two soldiers who were killed in the Galwan Valley clash in 2020. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief also met Jharkhand chief minister and JMM working president Hemant Soren at his residence.

The TRS chief emphasised that he also held ‘political discussions’ with the JMM president about the country’s development road map as the “country has failed to achieve what it could have in terms of development even 75 years after independence”. But he shot down a specific question---at the short press conference he addressed along with Hemant Soren---whether his political consultations are aimed at forming an anti-BJP front nationally.

“Who said (am making an anti-BJP front)? What it means, what it doesn’t is not important. What is very clear is that there should be sincere effort to take the country in the right direction. A beginning has been made. Discussions are on. So this is not an anti-BJP, anti-Congress or anti-anyone else. I want to make it clear. Someone is saying this is a third front, someone is saying it’s a fourth front. No front has been formed till now. What shape it will take, we will get to know later,” KCR said.

The Telangana chief minister however underscored that the country could not achieve the kind of development it should have in 75 years hence there was a need to ‘try out something new’, making it apparent that he was eying a role in national politics.

“What could be done, how it could be done that is still to be finalised. Don’t jump to conclusions. I request you all not to give it a name,” he added.

KCR said he was in the state to provide financial aid to martyrs of Galwan Valley as announced by him earlier and to seek blessings from JMM supremo Shibu Soren who had helped him in a separate Telangana movement.

When contacted for his party’s views over the development and KCR’s visit, JMM’s principal general secretary and spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya refused to comment. “I was not privy to the discussions in the meeting, so I can’t comment now,” he said.

KCR’s visit to Jharkhand comes as part of a series of consultations the TRS chief has had in the past couple of weeks with non-BJP and non-Congress parties including Shiva Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, NCP chief Sharad Pawar. He was in the national capital on Thursday where he met BJP MP Subramanian Swamy and farmers’ leader Rakesh Tikait.

KCR reached Ranchi on a special flight. He was accompanied by Minister V Srinivas Goud, his wife, MLC and daughter K Kavitha, MP J Santosh Kumar, Telangana State Planning Board member B Vinod Kumar, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and TRS general secretary Sravan Kumar Reddy.