A year after losing power, BRS makes efforts to regain confidence of people
BRS that ruled Telangana for two successive terms since the formation of the new state faced defeat in the assembly polls held on November 30, 2023 by winning 39 seats in 119-member assembly
A year after losing power to the Congress in Telangana, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), led by former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), is going all out to regain its lost ground in the state and rebuild its image among people.
The BRS, which ruled Telangana for two successive terms since the formation of the new state in June 2014, faced a humiliating defeat in the assembly elections held on November 30, 2023 by winning just 39 seats in the 119-member state assembly.
The Congress, which had just five MLAs in the last assembly, came to power by winning 64 seats. Its strength went up to 75, by winning one more seat in the by-elections to Secunderabad Cantonment seat, besides defection of 10 more MLAs from the BRS.
Effectively, the BRS strength has been reduced to 28 seats now. What is worse, the party suffered further humiliation in the Lok Sabha elections held in May 2024, during which the party drew a blank — it could not win even a single Lok Sabha seat out of the 17 seats in Telangana.
For KCR, who was reigning supreme in the state for nearly 10 years, it was a big setback. At one stage, he was projecting himself as a national leader by stitching up a coalition of regional parties across the country and even rechristened his party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), as BRS.
He even established the party network in different states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and was hoping to make it a national party as an effective alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
But all his hopes have been shattered with the defeat of the BRS in the state assembly elections and despite his whirlwind campaign across the state, his party could not win even a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections.
In the last one year, the BRS has lost several important leaders, including veteran Rajya Sabha member K Kesava Rao, apart from MLAs, who defected to the Congress. KCR has virtually gone into a cocoon, confining himself to his farmhouse. It has been nearly six months since he has made a public appearance.
Several scams that allegedly took place during the BRS regime in the last 10 years have come to light in the past one year, severely denting the image of the BRS. They include alleged large-scale land dealings by the party leaders using Dharani portal, telephone tapping of several politicians and even judges, grave engineering lapses in the construction of Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme, irregularities in power purchase agreement with Chhattisgarh and financial irregularities in awarding maintenance contract to Outer Ring Road and payments in Formula-E racing in Hyderabad.
The Congress government, led by chief minister A Revanth Reddy, has ordered inquiries into all these alleged scams and the investigation has been in progress for the last few months.
Adding to all these woes, KCR suffered yet another shock with the arrest of his daughter and MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha in the Delhi liquor policy case in March and was released on bail on August 26, after intense lobbying by the party leadership in Delhi.
In spite of receiving such a massive drubbing in the elections and facing inquiries into the various acts of omissions and commissions, the BRS leadership has not lost its fighting spirit.
For the last few months, the BRS has been taking up several agitations, highlighting the failures of the Revanth Reddy government. While KCR is confined to the farmhouse, his son K T Rama Rao and nephew T Harish Rao have been relentlessly targeting the Congress government and organising one programme or the other to keep the party visible in public.
Political analyst Ramakrishna Sangem said that there was no option for the BRS but to come back to the people and win their confidence. “They have been pushed to the wall and they need to bounce back, if they have to survive till the next elections,” he said.
He pointed out that the BRS has been trying to whip up anti-incumbency among the people by organising public protests over various issues, including non-implementation of guarantees promised to people, half-hearted implementation of crop loan waiver scheme, police crackdown on farmers at Lagacharla village against pharma city, demolition of houses along Musi riverbank, a series of food poisoning incidents in welfare hostels and schools and suicide cases of weavers and debt-ridden farmers.
Another political analyst Md Zakir said that the BRS leadership has still been under the illusion that the people had made a big mistake by voting the party out in the last assembly elections. “The party leaders, particularly KTR, has been telling the cadre that the people are waiting with vengeance to pull down Revanth Reddy and bring back KCR as the chief minister again, forgetting the fact that there is still four years’ time for the next elections,” he said.
Secondly, according to Zakir, the biggest disadvantage for the BRS is that it doesn’t have any organisational structure, unlike the Congress or the BJP. The BRS is completely a family-oriented party and unless KCR or his family members decide, no activity is taken up at any level, he added.
“It appears that the BRS is banking on a negative vote against the Congress, rather than its own strength. That is why, the BRS leaders are trying to create troubles for the Congress government and hoping that their party would benefit from the mistakes of the government,” Zakir said.
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