PM’s barb at KCR: What lies beneath in a state where BJP stalled, Cong upbeat

For Rao or KCR, as the Telangana Chief Minister is known, the November 30 election to 119 Assembly seats is a do-or-die battle. The crusader for the separate state, who has been the CM since Telangana was formed, is not in the best of health and wants to secure the position of his son K T Rama Rao before passing on the reins.

Sources said that the fact that KCR’s daughter K Kavitha, an MLC, has escaped arrest so far in the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, even as the Central agencies go after the Aam Aadmi Party, is proof of the tacit “understanding” between the BJP and BRS.

It also suits the BJP to have a strong regional party such as the BRS around that can contain the Congress. “The BJP wants to check the Congress emergence in any state, especially after Karnataka, while maximising its gains for the Lok Sabha elections,” a senior BJP leader said.

BJP leader in-charge of Telangana affairs Prakash Javadekar denied any such “arrangement” with the BRS, adding that “defamation” of the party had become a “joint strategy” of the BRS and Congress. “The issue is that the people are angry with the BRS government, and know that a Congress MLA will eventually go into the BRS kitty. Of the 19 Congress MLAs who won in 2018, 12 shifted to the BRS. In 2014, 36 of its MLCs defected to the BRS. So the people have decided to vote in the BJP with a majority,” Javadekar told The Indian Express.

The BJP has sent in its heavy artillery into the Telangana battle, which may end up getting it enough votes to presumably hurt the Congress. The campaigners include Union ministers Shobha Karandlaje, A Narayanaswamy and Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

After its 2019 return to power at the Centre, the BJP had made Telangana a priority state, seeing it as its second port in the South after Karnataka. In a big boost for the party, it had emerged as the main opposition in the prestigious Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections in 2020. However, since then, its progress has been stalled, even as the Congress expects a big bump up after its Karnataka victory in May.

Modi’s speech came amid growing chorus from the Congress corner that the BJP is the “B-team of the BRS”. Addressing a rally in Nizamabad, the PM said that KCR had wanted to join the BJP-led NDA so as to get its support after the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections, but he had refused.
A source said the PM’s speech would also help the BRS given the Congress’s claims of its association with the BJP, and given its dependence on the Muslim vote. “The attack by the Congress had weakened the BRS push,” the leader said.

Sources also point to the BRS extending help to small regional parties in other states, including the Jay

Adivasi Yuva Sangathan and Gondwana Gantantra Party in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. These have considerable influence in tribal and Dalit pockets, and the BRS’s push for them could split the anti-incumbency vote against the BJP.

The BRS has been projecting such interventions as part of its expansion plans. Its biggest forays have been in Maharashtra, particularly in areas which were part of the erstwhile Hyderabad State. Given that the anti-BJP vote is split multiple ways in Maharashtra, the NCP has been questioning the intent and timing of KCR’s push.

For the Lok Sabha, leaders said, the BJP wants to ensure as many winning candidates as possible on its symbol, and is willing to make concessions. “Expansion of the party and winning are important, but right now, the Lok Sabha polls are more important. We are not giving up, or giving way to any party… Just that we have strategically shifted focus. The party has a long-term plan for Telangana,” a party leader familiar with the developments in the state said.

According to the leader, the BJP’s move to strike an alliance with the JD(S) in Karnataka and the still-in-the-works attempts to have an understanding with the TDP and Jana Sena Party in Andhra are part of this Lok Sabha strategy.

A source said KCR is as shrewd a political player as his BJP counterparts Modi and Amit Shah, and can be expected to make the “right” call. “Hopefully, he will score all the big runs in the final overs,” the source said.