BRS working president KT Rama Rao, on Wednesday, scotched the rumours that his party was going to merge with the BJP in the immediate future.

Rao called the rumours baseless spread by some people with hidden agendas after a local YouTube channel reported that the regional party would merge with the BJP soon. The speculations about the merger of the BRS with the BJP has been doing the rounds for some time in the Telangana political circles, particularly since March this year when the Kalvakuntala family came under tremendous pressure with party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter Kavitha incarcerating in jail in connection with the Delhi liquor scam.

Along with this, the party’s failure to win a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections came as double whammy.

Though she claimed to be innocent, Kavitha is yet to get bail despite repeated appeals to the court and last month, KT Rama Rao and his cousin T Harish Rao were ensconced in Delhi for a couple of days to consult lawyers. However, Congress had charged them with meeting senior BJP leaders to secure her release.

The report by a Telugu channel came a month after the meeting. Rao, who is popularly known as KTR, took to ‘X’ to dismiss the reports. He wrote, “24 years of resilience and devotion! Against hundreds of saboteurs, standing up against thousands of malicious propagandists and schemes! For 24 years! And yet, we prevailed …To those spreading baseless rumours with hidden agendas, let this be your final warning. Publish a rejoinder to your final warning. Publish a rejoinder to your malicious lies against the BRS or face legal action. BRS will continue to serve the people of Telangana as it has been for over two decades. Stop spreading baseless rumours. We fall, we rise and we fight solely for Telangana! We will never bow down. Not now, not ever! Jai Telangana!”

KTR booked

A case was registered against KTR and two other BRS leaders for allegedly flying a drone without permission during his recent visit to Medigadda barrage last month.

A BRS team led by KTR had visited the barrage that had developed cracks in October last year and was at the centre of a controversy surrounding the entire Kaleshwaram project.

The FIR was filed after the BRS leader shared some drone pictures on his social media handle, also included two former MLAs Balka Suman and Gandra Venkataramana Reddy. Flying drones is barred at key installations due to security reasons.

They visited the barrage on 26 July but an FIR was filed by Vali Sheikh, an assistant executive engineer on 29 July. Ironically, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was arrested and sent to jail in 2020 for securing drone images of a farm house leased by the family of BRS working president at Janwada in Ranga Reddy district. He was then the MP from Malkajgiri and was booked as the prime accused.