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

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

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