Telangana CM Chandrasekhara Rao aims at national politics with eye on state

A Lok Sabha member of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)had  told this reporter last year that the party was hopeful of joining the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre by December. The talk of a possible exit of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) from the government was also doing the rounds. 

But what followed was contrary to the TRS MP’s expectations. Bandaru Dattatreya, the lone Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister from Telangana, was dropped from the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2017, without any hint of a possible replacement — either from within or outside his party — from the state. 

A soft-spoken leader from the twin cities of  Hyderabad and Secunderabad, Dattatreya was seen as someone on friendly terms with Telangana Chief Minister and TRS President K Chandrasekhara Rao (KCR). His removal came at a time the BJP central leadership was encouraging its state leaders to focus on the party’s growth in the state, with an aim to get a bigger pie in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Though he never formally declared himself as a political ally, KCR had endorsed almost all major policy decisions of the Centre, including  demonetisation, before he had hit the headlines for using an insulting word (interpreted as a slip of the tongue by his son K T Rama Rao when Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman confronted him over KCR’s language) while referring to Modi at a rally on February 27, 2018.

Many viewed this sudden and unsparing criticism of Modi as a public posture aimed to erase the image of being soft on the central government. Continuing his rhetoric against the “failures of the BJP and the Congress”, KCR used the next couple of public meetings to unveil a basic plan for the proposed federal front by taking the lead in bringing together the non-BJP and non-Congress parties to this common political platform. 

The TDP’s exit from the NDA government and KCR’s announcement of his intent to enter national politics came almost at the same time, even though the latter’s move was not meant to antagonise the BJP. Even for the BJP leadership, KCR was one useful regional leader who is in direct political conflict with the Congress in the state and who can also effectively check its revival.

However, like his Andhra counterpart, N Chandrababu Naidu, KCR too was disappointed with Modi’s refusal to act on his request for increasing assembly seats in Telangana. The move is necessary to accommodate important ticket aspirants, including the ones he had brought from the Congress and other parties promising the ticket in the coming elections.

He had also sought the Centre’s approval for a proposal to introduce reservations for the Muslims in backward class category and hike the existing quota for the SC and ST population. If implemented, the reservations in education and employment in the state would go much beyond 50 per cent.

Observers believe that the idea of a federal front was as much an outcome of KCR’s assessment of what is going to happen in the next parliamentary elections as his own political and family compulsions back home in Telangana. 

What makes KCR think that the idea of a federal front will click in the run-up to the 2019 election is his belief that neither the BJP nor the Congress and even the existing NDA and UPA fronts would achieve a majority in the Lok Sabha, according to party insiders.

Also, the TRS winning a second term appears difficult, particularly in the light of a resurgent Congress and a perceived anti-incumbency mood among farmers and other sections. With the Muslims being a sizable number in most constituencies 

across Telangana, a perceived  soft-pedalling with the BJP, that too, without achieving reservations as promised for them in the 2014 elections, would mean handing a big chunk of minority votes back to the Congress. 

Some of the other important promises, including double bedroom houses for weaker sections, three-acre land for landless Scheduled Caste families, and piped water (Mission Bhagiratha) to every household, are still a work in progress and these issues may be raised by the Opposition at the time of elections if the TRS government failed to fulfil them.

With a new role in national politics, KCR may try beating the anti-incumbency and rally people behind the TRS in Telangana. If he succeeds, it would help him achieve a smooth succession by elevating his son as chief minister in the next term.