Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will lay the foundation stone for the office of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in New Delhi next week, a harbinger for his idea of federal front and becoming salient as alternative to BJP.
The event in the national Capital on 2 September, which comes soon after Rao’s launch of ‘Dalit Bandhu’ scheme, will be attended by over 100 leaders including TRS MPs, MLAs and party bigwigs.
KCR’s ambition of a front is however bereft of Congress which, he claims, has abjectly failed to govern the country.
Political observers say KCR will highlight the rapid strides Telangana has made in various sectors during the last seven years. He claims that the country’s youngest state has emerged as a role model for all the states in a short span of time.
TRS leaders say KCR will try to highlight how his government has delivered on various fronts in a short span of time to transform an arid region into a lush green and prosperous state.
With a growth rate and per capita income higher than the national average and continuing impressive growth even during the pandemic, Telangana is already claiming to be a role model.
The TRS founder plans to unveil his agenda for national politics with a new economic model, which will focus on farmers.
Analysts say that KCR will showcase at the national level his success in transforming agriculture with ‘Rythu Bandhu’, an investment support scheme for farmers which is emulated by the Centre and many states.
KCR has been slamming both the Congress and the BJP as ‘storytellers’ who failed to give direction to the country.
In 2018 KCR had floated the idea of a front of like-minded parties as an alternative to both the BJP and the Congress.
He had intensified the efforts after retaining power in Telangana in the December 2018 elections.
After the massive victory in Assembly elections, KCR had appointed his son KT Rama Rao as the working president of the TRS so that he can focus on national politics.
He flew from one state to the other to meet leaders of various regional parties.
He called on West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik, Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan and Tamil Nadu’s MK Stalin.
He also discussed the idea with HD Deve Gowda of the JD(S) in Karnataka, Hemanth Soren of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in Jharkhand, Akhilesh Yadav of the SP in Uttar Pradesh, and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy of the YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh.
With the BJP retaining power at the Centre with a massive majority, KCR had dumped the idea of a front and confined himself to the state.
Last year, there were reports that KCR was planning to float a national party.
He, however, did not rule out such a proposal. He told a party meeting that a decision would be taken at the right time after discussions.
During the campaign for Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections in November last year, he had stated that the country definitely needs a new experiment and TRS would be in the forefront to provide the alternative.
He had declared that a conclave of like-minded parties will be held in Hyderabad in December.
He had also said that Hyderabad would be the epicentre of the movement against the BJP government for its ‘anti-people’, ‘anti-farmer’ and ‘anti-labour’ policies, and the TRS will lead the movement.