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TRS, opposition parties lock horns over KCR’s early poll remark
KCR, as the chief minister is fondly called, made the statement on Sunday, which comes after Union home minister Amit Shah, at a public meeting in Hyderabad on July 3, said that the BJP would wrest power from the TRS whenever the elections are held.
Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president and chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s statement that he was ready to dissolve the state assembly and go for early elections in the state, if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre, too, goes for early Lok Sabha elections, has triggered a war of words between the party and the opposition in the state.
KCR, as the chief minister is fondly called, made the statement on Sunday, which comes after Union home minister Amit Shah, at a public meeting in Hyderabad on July 3, said that the BJP would wrest power from the TRS whenever the elections are held.
“It clearly shows KCR has become very insecure, after watching the tremendous response to the BJP to its public meeting and the success of the party’s National Executive Committee meeting,” BJP state president Bandi Sanjay said on Monday.
He said the chief minister was afraid that the political graph of the TRS was gradually falling, whereas that of the BJP was shooting up. “He has realised that the people are frustrated with his rule and his game is up,” Sanjay said.
On Tuesday, state BJP official spokesman N V Subhash said it was ridiculous on the part of KCR to link the dissolution of the state assembly with the dissolution of Parliament to go for early general elections. “He is looking for an excuse to go for early elections, as he sensed that the BJP is fast growing in the state and can dethrone him in the next elections,” he said.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A Revanth Reddy challenged the chief minister to dissolve the state assembly within a week. He said KCR would meet the same fate as that of Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, “as the people were eagerly waiting to pull down his party from power”.
“We have come to know that KCR had made the statement on early elections after obtaining a report from his election strategist Prashant Kishor that the TRS won’t be able to get more than 25 seats in the 119-member assembly in the next elections,” Reddy said.
YSR Telangana Party president Y S Sharmila felt that KCR had raised the issue of early elections and kicked up a debate only to divert the attention of the people from his government’s failure to address the problems confronting the state. “It is a fact that the anti-incumbency against the KCR government has been rising,” she said.
However, TRS leaders defend the chief minister’s statement on early elections. “The chief minister threw a challenge to the Prime Minister to compare what the Centre had done to the nation and what the TRS had done in the state in the last eight years. It was also to see who would get the real mandate from the people,” senior TRS leader and state tourism minister V Srinivas Goud said.
Stating that KCR was not afraid of elections, Goud said during the Telangana movement, KCR had resigned from his MP seat many times and won the by-elections with a huge mandate. “Fear and frustration are not in KCR’s blood. Let Modi face the people’s mandate by going for early elections, and KCR will also do it in Telangana,” he said.
