Ahead of Lok Sabha elections, the BRS is trying to regain the support of Muslims in Telangana with party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao pleading to the community to vote for his candidates during his ongoing bus yatra.

Rao referred to his daughter K Kavitha’s arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Delhi Liquor Scam to convince them that his party was not colluding with the BJP.

“You have seen how the BJP took my daughter away and locked her up in jail.They are doing injustice. But we are not scared, we will fight till our last breath. We are secular and we want to do justice with everybody,” said Rao who is more popularly known as KCR. He was speaking at a street rally in Bhongir.

One of the key reasons behind its defeat in the Assembly elections was the split in its minority vote bank. The state has 13 per cent Muslim vote not only in the Old City area of Hyderabad which is the AIMIM bastion but also in the districts. In 2018, BRS had swept the polls thanks to the Muslim vote which had gone almost en bloc to the regional party. However, last year the split in minority vote between BRS and Congress had cost the community dearly since not a single Muslim candidate got elected. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Muslims are likely to vote for Congress in order to defeat the BJP.

The BRS social media team too has been active, particularly on social media platforms like ‘X’ to woo minority voters to vote for the regional party in the upcoming elections, suggesting that only regional parties can push back the BJP since Congress fared poorly when in direct fight with the Saffron party. 

However, the BRS has lost credibility among the minorities, particularly the educated section since the party had supported most of the legislations brought in by the NDA government in Parliament till the BJP tried to destabilise KCR’s government. 

Moreover, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has been alleging that the BRS was trying to work out a deal with the BJP to secure Kavitha’s bail and hence will surrender before the Modi government even if it wins a seat in Telangana.